My friend believes she can sense the emotions of others. She describes it as telepathy, but also describes it as a “zen thing” where she is incapable of distinguishing the emotions of others form her own, because individuals don’t exist.
Now, quasi-religious stuff aside, she has found several people with similar experiences in varying degrees of severity-- and noticed that they all described it similar. This has led her to believe that there is something mystical going on, but leaves me to believe that the symptoms are probably some common mental problem.
So psychiatrist dopers, what mental issue(s) cause people to be unable to distinguish the emotions of others from their own?
I have never heard of something like this as part of a real psychiatric disorder and I keep up with such things. The part where she claims that she has met several other people who experience the same thing is somewhat of a red flag. Does she hang around with these people? If so, it would probably just part of “group think” that makes her believe such a thing is possible and that she has it. That is common in things from New Age beliefs to religious fundamentalists.