Instead, while observing pain,
the volunteers showed brain patterns consistent with Mentalizing, which involves imagining another person's thoughts and intentions.
The purpose of group therapy is for the therapist and group members to see, in real time,
where they lose their Mentalizing capacity during interpersonal interactions.
Because people who are highly empathic
are more capable than the average person at Mentalizing another person's situation, they can
feel a similar sense of negative emotion if the other person is going through a difficult time.
We found that local grey matter volume in the left anterior superior temporal sulcus,
a region in the functionally defined theory of mind or Mentalizing network, was associated with the degree to which participants
relied on information about innocent intentions to forgive accidental harms.