Empathy and Compassion

Caregivers facing the difficult burden of caring for an aging or sick relative often let their own physical and mental well-being go. Having a doctor willing to take the time to listen can help a great deal.

Using empathy as our guide, we may change ourselves and the world.

This is what empathy calls us to do and why we shut ourselves off from it. It calls us to recognize the suffering in the world and instead of hardening ourselves to it or collapsing under its weight, instead to let it spur us into action so that we may help alleviate that suffering.

To do this we must learn to open our hearts once again and then push beyond the weight of our own feelings about what is happening in the world, into a place of action and conscious choice, for this is where change and hope will begin.

by ALISA RUTHERFORD-FORTUNATI

The EMPATHY project or “Europe meets Young Patients” is a four-day seminar that will take place in Brussels on 8-11 July. Young patients will have the chance to address their needs to various health stakeholders. TheEuropean Medical Students’ Association (EMSA) will attend this event that they consider as an “amazing opportunity where direct contact with young patients involved”.

I believe in empathy. I believe in the kind of empathy that is created through imagination and through intimate, personal relationships. I am a writer and a teacher, so much of my time is spent interpreting stories and connecting to other individuals. It is the urge to know more about ourselves and others that creates empathy. Through imagination and our desire for rapport, we transcend our limitations, freshen our eyes, and are able to look at ourselves and the world through a new and alternative lens.

A focus on storytelling at one medical school allows patients with dementia to relate to the medical students who may one day provide their care, and vice versa...

Throughout antiquity, the human animal has told stories to make sense of the world, from perhaps the flickering campfire lore of prehistoric cavemen to the dialogues of Socrates to the parables of Jesus.

Now, medical educators believe the ancient art of storytelling may serve as a mental aid for medical students learning to empathize with dementia patients they'll treat as doctors. Participation among students at Penn State College of Medicine improves perceptions of people affected by the condition, according to researchers there.

BY MATTHEW MIENTKA

Reading literary fiction — even something as short as 10 pages — can increase empathy, improve decision-making and make people more comfortable with uncertainty, suggest two new Canadian studies. In other words, the very pursuit we use to distract us from real life might actually make us better at living it.

Lead author Maja Djikic said the findings have particular repercussions for our schools, where she notes a “dangerous trend” away from the arts and soft skills. This observation dovetails with a January report from Scholastic showing that reading for pleasure on a regular basis (five to seven days a week) is indeed a waning activity among youths, having fallen to 34 per cent in 2012 from 37 per cent two years earlier.

BY MISTY HARRIS, 

Reading Other Minds: Effects of Literature on Empathy; Djikic, M., Oatley, K., & Moldoveanu, M. C.; The Scientific Study of Literature; Issue: 3(1); 2013; Pages: 28-47

http://www-2.rotman.utoronto.ca/facbios/file/(2013b)%20Djikic,%20Oatley,%20&%20Moldoveanu.pdf

The Charter for Compassion Pakistanhas launched the Ramzan Challenge 2013, the objective of which is to teach school students and university students the importance of compassion and social welfare. These students will be trained to become “Agents of Compassion” who can subsequently become the role models for others in society.

The Charter for Compassion Pakistan is a local initiative based upon the Charter for Compassion, a document that transcends religious, ideological, and national differences, inspiring worldwide community-based acts of compassion. The document was drafted by a multi-faith, multi-national council of thinkers and leaders. It is a cooperative effort to restore compassionate thinking and action to the centre of religious, moral and political life. The Charter for C

Helen Weng is currently a doctoral student in clinical psychology studying the Department of Psychology, Waisman Laboratory for Brain Imaging and Behavior, and Center for Investigating Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin - Madison.

Her long-term goals include studying how interventions that increase love and compassion impact both psychological and physical health in patients, and how training these qualities in health care providers can prevent burnout and improve patient outcomes.

Helen conducted a study titled,  Compassion Training Alters Altruism and Neural Responses to Suffering. "Compassion is a key motivator of altruistic behavior, but little is known about individuals’ capacity to cultivate compassion through training. We examined whether compassion may be systematically trained by testing whether (a) short-term compassion training increases altruistic behavior and (b) individual differences in altruism are associated with training-induced changes in neural responses to suffering. "

Culture of Empathy Builder:  Helen Y. Weng

 http://j.mp/17RkrF1

Until now, little was scientifically known about the human potential to cultivate compassion — the emotional state of caring for people who are suffering in a way that motivates altruistic behavior.

A new study by researchers at the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds at the Waisman Center of the University of Wisconsin-Madison shows that adults can be trained to be more compassionate. The report, recentlypublished online in the journal Psychological Science, is the first to investigate whether training adults in compassion can result in greater altruistic behavior and related changes in neural systems underlying compassion.

by Helen Weng

Culture of Empathy Builder:  Helen Y. Weng

 http://j.mp/17RkrF1

Melbourne, Australia: On 18th June 2013, His Holiness, the Dalai Lama interacted with an audience of over 170 students and others in a discussion on Ethics for a Whole World at the New South Wales Parliament House on invitation by the Sydney Peace Foundation. Prelude the dialogue, a tribute was paid to the Cadigal people and their possession of the local land, corresponding to the Tibetan's possession of the land of Tibet.

Read Seeds of Empathy launches in England and the latest childcare & early years news & best practice on Nursery World

The programme is aimed at capitalising the relationship that young children have with their family and early years practitioners to teach them empathy and lower aggression levels.

Seeds of Empathy is due to launch in the following settings in Lewisham: Limelight Pre-school, Oakhill Community Nursery, Playhouse Community Nursery and Baring School. They are still searching for one more setting to be involved this year. 

by Seeta Bhardwa,

Empathy and compassion, or the lack thereof, have been making waves in the healthcare arena. David Cameron, the British Prime Minister, recently bemoaned a lack of compassion in the nursing profession and the Francis report is littered with examples of patients being treated in an incredibly callous fashion by hospital staff.

Interestingly, some have recently questioned whether compassion and empathy are quite the unmitigated goods we usually think they are. However, the evidence that empathy is a boon to patients is fairly unequivocal.

by Carwyn Hooper

Lecturer in Medical Ethics and Law at St George's, University of London

James Taranto on a simple concept that could revolutionize scientific and social thought.

Oakley defines pathological altruism as "altruism in which attempts to promote the welfare of others instead result in unanticipated harm." A crucial qualification is that while the altruistic actor fails to anticipate the harm, "an external observer would conclude [that it] was reasonably foreseeable." Thus, she explains, if you offer to help a friend move, then accidentally break an expensive item, your altruism probably isn't pathological; whereas if your brother is addicted to painkillers and you help him obtain them, it is.

Can people be taught to act more altruistically? Newly published research, measuring both brain activity and behavior, suggests the answer just may be yes.

“Our findings support the possibility that compassion and altruism can be viewed as trainable skills rather than stable traits,” a research team led by Richard J. Davidsonand Helen Weng of the University of Wisconsin-Madison writes in the journal Psychological Science.

Specifically, they report that taking a course in compassion leads to increased engagement of certain neural systems, which prompts higher levels of altruistic behavior.

By Tom Jacobs 

Culture of Empathy Builder:  Helen Y. Weng

 http://j.mp/17RkrF1