When I was learning counselling we were told never to say "I know just how you feel". Well perhaps we need to review that advice according to the discovery reported here based on imaging brain activity. Actually the discovery doesn't really make the advice redundant because the fact remains that each person's reactions to and 'wiring' for things such as pain or distress is individual [if we were computers we'd each have built our own operating system from scratch]. What this discovery amounts to is that when we empathise, the part of our brain that deals with our own pain [or whatever, presumably] is activated.
I'm starting to ponder the theological implications of this in regard to incarnation and things like Hebrews 4 ...
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