Ineffable Ontological Detanglement .: Introspective Assistance & Mental Analysis Manual
Yes, this is within the exact same framework as all other mental conditions. "Oh but empath is a happy word not a crazy word." Generally, no, this particular disorder does not hurt you, within the milder levels of empath it will only ever help you, within the higher levels it can become emotionally overwhelming. Within any level of empath, you really have the option to hurt others, it gives you the ability to be incredibly manipulative. In the higher levels of empath, yes, it really does become the fantastical magical fantasy mental condition that people often claim it is, your awareness of people's feelings begins to hit levels quite mysterious, you're clearly peeking at something beyond the normal levels of semi-conscious subconscious processing, you're peeking at our interconnection.
You don't have the empath so you can take the initiative and go person to person being overwhelmed with their feelings. You have the empath to understand the feelings, the empath allows you to take apart people's expression, the feelings within them, and land on an understanding of the manner of presentation, the feelings connected to the thoughts that are presented within their expression. If you are a smart person who understands how to use it, it helps you to understand the psychology of the person speaking, understand the underlying thoughts and feelings behind their expression.
I have magic empath stories, you can really feel them on a psychedelic. I'm not even really a particularly high empath, however on a psychedelic I can become magic empath.
Cas has very very mild tourette syndrome, in incredibly rare moments he can't control a random nonsense statement or funny sounding random construction of letters flying out of his face. I think we were on... 2C-I or psilocybin or both. Before I know what's happening I feel and hallucinate a "WOOOOSH" energy, super hard energy flying through him as he says with a bright charming smile "...The box just left!" Yes I'm outing you Cas, people are going to find out eventually anyway. It's adorable.
The other time I felt this woosh I was at a party, an old high school half friend half acquaintance of mine noticed he spotted me in Osborne Village, very highly ridiculously displaced from where we went to high school together and he thought obviously I need to invite him to our house warming party. I was on ketamine and MDMA and I was conversating with a pretty lady, the discussion... Not even the previous discussion I'm pretty sure it was the topic before then, had India in it. Then I was saying "I'm a government funded drug dealer, I'm selling drugs bought with my unemployment cheques." The lady beside us begins talking, the second I hear "Y-" out of my mouth comes a "Bleeaugh...?" as my hands make a confused body language motion and my face dazes a little, WOOOOSH, "...You can't put those... Two thoughts together... The India and the drug dealer... It don't make no sense I don't know... It don't..." I looked at her for four seconds, then just turned back to the pretty lady and kept casually conversating as if we didn't witness anything and thought to myself "YES, I got to do it... I got to pull that move... Oh my God I've been wanting that one my whole life..." I didn't even insert an "Anyway..." Nope, too predictable. I just carried on where we left off. The other lady did a pretty damn good job keeping it together considering she just witnessed two out of this world magical things in rapid succession.
It does not automatically declare you the magical people reader. A lot of ego invested types will realize "Oh, my brain seems to be really good at picking up on people's feelings. I can use this to confirm myself." Combine this with automatic self-referential cognition and you've got yourself a very annoying person. Combine this with paranoid and you're really going to become something. However to those of us who can handle the brain, the combination of empath and paranoid creates perfect people reading ability... So long as you know how to filter out your psychosis.
The ability to attune to feelings can most certainly be used against people, used to bring people where the empath wishes to bring people. The idea of empathy can be used to hook you, you see the empath as the warm loving shoulder you can cry upon, the connection is made, and now you are under the control of the empath. They can draw in everyone else in your lives and turn them all against you. Less sexy, they can sob story you to death in order to get you to validate them, they can guilt you into never daring to hurt them.
With empath you are less likely to be into threesomes, you prefer to focus your attention on one person at a time. You're less likely to be into being surrounded by cute animals, you like to focus your attention on one animal at a time. You prefer dealing with people one at a time, and this is why somebody in a position of power would not want high levels of empath, it would become incredibly overwhelming, you simply wouldn't be able to do it. A little bit of empath, however, would do you just fine. With low levels of empath it isn't really a big deal you can focus on a lot of people at a time in most situations, but in the bedroom and engaging with cute animals you generally prefer one at a time. A leader would want it paired with sociopath, and you can't have high levels of empath with sociopath. However you can have high levels of empath with fully customizable compartmentalization.
The most successful empaths are the mid level intelligence empaths. People smart enough to correctly interpret the feelings they are getting, however not smart enough to understand the stupidity of the feelings they are getting. They can hear "I'M GONNA STRAP MYSELF BOMB WALK IN 'DAT HOSPITAL BLOW IT UP IF YOU DON'T GIVE MY MOMMA PRIOIRTY OVER 'DEM THREE DYIN' BABIES" and respond with "Do you want your mother to see you dead?" while bypassing certain obvious declarations that would possibly be effective, but, this empath's solution is far more likely to be effective. This empath likely detected the stupidity, but, not enough, as the empath was capable of producing this statement. This kind of thing can be done with brilliant and manipulative empaths, however chances are it would take a certain autistic genius to hit the right angle of appeal and you will not ever be seeing significant autism and empath together in the same person. But, now I've somehow achieved giving you a starting base. It took an observation of a stupid interaction and a bit of evil imagination. No, none of our manipulative empaths will be lowering themselves to appeal to stupidity, that is not necessary.