You’ve heard of ADD but what about EDD? EDD refers to empathy deficit disorder (as defined by a Washington psychotherapist in the Washington Post). Empathy is the ability to feel at some level what another is experiencing.

People with EDD have trouble looking outside their own world to appreciate what other people experience. As you can imagine, that kills communication, creates conflicts, and ultimately leads to failure in relationships.

So the husband has had a touch day and just wants to come home and relax. But he may not want to hear that his wife has had an equally difficult day, just in other ways. Or because she is so focused on her problems, she is unable (or unwilling) to try to enter his world to appreciate what he has to deal with all day.

EDD is essentially self-absorption. It can come about as a result of habitual practice. It can be overcome through retraining. That is, learning to look beyond oneself and trying to enter another’s person’s world.

Many of the exercises in my marriage preparation course are designed to help couples learn about each other’s lives, problems, experiences, etc.

Here are a couple to get you started:

Two-Way Learning

Try On a New Pair of Shoes

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 26th, 2007 at 5:20 pm and is filed under Personality Issues, Conflict Resolution. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.