Empathy and depression: the moral system on overdrive

This chapter describes the intimate connection between empathy and depression, the epidemic of our modern world. While depression has been described as a 'disorder of the self', it may be more accurately characterized as a disorder of 'concern for others'. People who are depressed most often have normal or elevated levels of empathy; however, their affect-directed, automatic causal interpretations of pain in others are often disturbed, leading to non-conscious assertions of blame, usually placed on themselves. Empathy, a socially organizing neural system, allows us to share others' feelings, to mimic without awareness, and forms the basis of our relationships and our social learning (Decety & Jackson, 2004).