Abstract

This is a commentary on the article “The Empathic Migrant” (Aragona et al., 2020), in which the authors explore the experience of empathy in male African refugees and asylum seekers in Italy with a diagnosis of PTSD (N=20). In the publication cited by the authors, I theorise that empathy may be impacted in individuals diagnosed with PTSD. I am drawing on a thin, phenomenological notion of empathy as a pre-reflective mode of perception and argue that in some situations, traumatised individuals may cease to experience the other as another subject that offers possibilities for interaction (Wilde, 2019; cf. Stein, 1917, p. 53). The Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) administered by the authors suggests a different understanding of empathy.