Not long ago, I picked up a bestselling book on “toxic empathy,” thinking I would find a nuanced exploration of how financial advisors can better support the emotional side of money. Last year, I wrote about the importance of empathy in financial advice giving in my Forbes article, “The Path To Financial Health Goes Deeper Than Advice,” and I expected this book to add depth to that conversation. Instead, it startled me for a very different reason.
The author’s central claim is dramatic: empathy can go wrong, and often will. According to the book, empathy is inherently unstable, something that draws you so deeply into another person’s emotional reality that you lose your own. Empathy, they argued, is like jumping into the water to save a drowning person, only to be pulled under and drown alongside them. The conclusion? Forget empathy. Choose compassion instead.
At first, this framing felt intuitive. But like most overly tidy arguments, it started to unravel. Something didn’t hold water (pun fully intended). Because what the author described wasn’t empathy at all.
Empathy Isn’t the Problem – Enmeshment Is
What the author called “empathy” is something very different, something psychologist Murray Bowen described decades ago as enmeshment.
Enmeshment is the emotional fusion that happens when two people lose sight of where one person’s emotional life ends and the other’s begins. It’s not connection—it’s collapse. The self collapses into the other. Boundaries disappear. The relationship starts operating from a rigid, unhealthy script: one person must feel a certain way, act a certain way, uphold a certain emotional role—for the sake of the other.
That is not empathy.
That is not connection.
And it is most certainly not healthy.
Why Low Emotional Intelligence Gets This Wrong
Those with low emotional intelligence (low EQ) often mistake enmeshment for empathy.
Low EQ doesn’t simply mean someone is “bad with emotions.” It means they cannot accurately sense or respond to the emotional states of others. They struggle to regulate their own internal experience. They may be overwhelmed, shut down, or reactive. They lack the emotional literacy required to truly meet another person where they are.
So when a low-EQ individual attempts what they think is empathy, they don’t track the other person’s emotional experience—they merge with it. They get swept up. They over-identify. They lose themselves. They confuse drowning together with helping.
And then, when that unhealthy pattern predictably implodes—as enmeshment always does—they call the whole thing “empathy gone wrong.”
But empathy didn’t go wrong.
They never practiced empathy to begin with.
Differentiation: The Missing Ingredient
Bowen used the term differentiation to describe the emotional maturity required for true empathy. Differentiation means maintaining your sense of self—your ethics, your independence, your clarity—while still connecting deeply with someone else.
A differentiated person can sit with someone’s panic without becoming panicked. They can hear someone’s fear without absorbing it as their own. They can witness someone’s struggle without turning it into a personal crisis.
This is the foundation of empathy. If you are not differentiated as you attempt empathy, then you are likely going to slip into a type of enmeshment with the person you are trying to help. So, in the end, empathy is pure and good, but can slip into enmeshment if you are not mature enough to be a differentiated person.
Why This Matters for Financial Well-Being
When I write about financial health, I emphasize that people don’t change because they received better advice. They change because they feel seen, because someone understood the emotional undercurrent beneath the financial behavior. That’s empathy at work.
And the evidence backs this up.
In one small experiment, researchers gave participants an unexpected parking ticket and then measured their well-being. When participants were met with empathy—when someone simply acknowledged, “That’s frustrating; I can see why you’re upset”—their happiness didn’t just rebound. It often rose above their baseline happiness before the ticket.
Empathy didn’t trap them in their negative feelings.
It helped them move through them.
And that’s the magic.
Why Enmeshment Is Actually the Toxic Ingredient
Enmeshment, on the other hand, is not about seeing another person. It’s about consuming them, or being consumed by their emotional state. It demands emotional sacrifice and narrow roles. It requires one person to feel bad so the other can feel good or vice versa. It makes connection conditional, tense, rigid.
It turns supporting someone into rescuing them, then resenting them for requiring rescue.
That is the true toxicity.
So when we see someone “over-helping,” collapsing, carrying emotional burdens that aren’t theirs, bending their identity for someone else’s comfort—that is not empathy. That is enmeshment masquerading as care.
We should call it what it is.
Not “toxic empathy.”
Just toxic enmeshment.
The Case for Real Empathy in Financial Advice
Empathy is one of the strongest tools we have in financial advisory work.
It helps clients:
- Feel safe enough to be honest about their financial reality
- Explore the emotions driving their habits
- Finally look at the things they’ve been avoiding
- Gain clarity about what they want and why
- Connect their money decisions to their values
- Make changes that actually endure
Empathy is the spark that ignites motivation.
The wind that fills a hurting person’s sails.
The quiet signal that says: “You’re not alone in this.”
When empathy is present, clients don’t drown.
They rise.
What We Should Be Teaching Instead
If we replaced “empathy is dangerous” with “emotional fusion is dangerous,” the whole conversation would shift.
We’d stop blaming the remedy.
We’d start addressing the real issue.
In the End, Empathy Isn’t the Villain—It’s the Guide
The book on toxic empathy failed to make a clear distinction between empathy and enmeshment, and that distinction matters. It matters for our relationships. It matters for our leadership. And it absolutely matters in financial advising, where emotions run high and trust is fragile.
Empathy doesn’t drown us.
Enmeshment does.
Empathy doesn’t trap us.
It frees us to truly help others feel seen and heard.
And when done well, empathy doesn’t just draw people closer—it moves them forward.
It helps them heal.
It helps them see possibilities again.
It helps them change.
Not because we jump into the water with them.
But because we stay grounded on the shore, extend a steady hand, and say:
“I’m right here with you. Let’s get you back on solid ground.”