Bio: Lou Agosta, PhD, is an empathy consultant; the author of three peer-reviewed books on empathy, including Radical Empathy in the Context of Literature (2025) and Empathy Lessons (2022); and he is Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Ross University School of Medicine at Saint Anthony Hospital, Chicago, USA. (LinkedIn) (Facebook) (Website)

Topic:  Building the Empathy Movement with Rhetorical Empathy: How empathy gets inside the listening of the audience, expanding their participation 

Abstract:  Usually we think of empathy as listening and rhetoric as speaking - this talk tells you how to get inside the listening of the audience (listener) with your empathic speaking. The empathic skills of re-description, speaking truth to power, and  imaginative variation are engaged and examples from business, politics, and personal development are provided as contributions to building empathy as a movement. 

Bio: Tony Scruggs is a 30-year SAG member, former MLB player, and champion of nonviolence for communication, using Marshall Rosenberg’s 'Life-Enriching Education' to drive systemic change.  (LinkedIn) (Facebook) (Website)  

Topic: Building the Empathy Movement with mutual-empathy and by widening the circle, exponentially.

Abstract:  We can expand the Empathy Movement by multiplying the impact of need-based communication (& empathic understanding), through a repeatable blueprint for widening the circle (& training more people to translate pain into universal needs).     

Bio:   Jill Nagle is the founder and CEO of Mendful, an app providing on-demand, human-forward conflict resolution  (LinkedIn) (Facebook) (Website)

Topic: Mendful: An App to Scale the Empathy Movement Through Our Mobile Devices

Abstract: For all the gifts it has brought, the digital world is also amplifying polarization, depression, isolation, and violence, working directly against the goal of our  Empathy Movement. We'd like to turn that around, and use the digital space for connection and repair. 

This session introduces Mendful, the first app to provide human, AI-supported on-demand empathy-based conflict resolution. Discover how we plan to use this technology to scale human connection and build a foundational tool for the Empathy Movement.

The issue comes in when we focus on our empathy only with people who are just like us or believe in the same things that we do. That can prevent us from seeing the points of view of people who aren’t like us and not taking into account their feelings. Volpe tells us when you stay one sided you can over-empathize with one person over another. “Ultimately to have empathy is about seeing the points of view of other people,” Volpe says.

Over empathizing can also get in the way of rational decision making Volpe says. For example, you see someone that needs financial support. That’s when empathy turns into compassion and that fuels a desire for action. “But consider empathy just as a data point for what you are doing.” Be careful giving of yourself more than you can logically spend or afford. Too little empathy is definitely not good and too much empathy can also lead to challenges.

In a surprising interview statement, Elon Musk claimed that “the fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy” (Wolf, 2025).

Most people reading this will recoil. Empathy is supposed to be the cure for polarization and dehumanization. If we could just understand one another better, surely we would fight less. And in many cases, that intuition is right.

But in other cases, empathy does not ease our divisions. It intensifies them. It fuels moral outrage, locks us into sides, and makes constructive disagreement feel impossible.

This asymmetry is not a flaw in empathy. It’s actually its defining feature. The word empathy comes from the German Einfühlung, which roughly means “feeling into.” Empathy was never meant to be a rational spreadsheet or a cost benefit analysis. It was meant to function as an emotional bridge, a way of entering into another person’s experience by feeling with them.

On January 17, 2026 the Empathy Center will be conducting a Facilitator training course on Zoom. The intent of this training is to teach the participant how to organize and conduct Empathy Circles.

The course is experiential and consists of 4 classes taught over 4 consecutive Saturdays. Each class lasts about two and half hours. In addition to attending 4 sessions of 2.5 hours each, there are weekly assignments to complete that may take 1-2 hours.  We will also pair you weekly with an empathy buddy to practice empathy.

The only prerequisite is to attend at least two Empathy Circles prior to attending a training. We have recently started a drop-in Empathy Cafe on Thursdays at 6 PM, Pacific Time at https://zoom.us/j/3521266686. By attending this Empathy Cafe one can fulfill the two circle prerequisite.

 

This training equips you with the essential skills to create safe, structured environments where every participant feels truly heard and understood. By mastering these facilitation techniques, you will be empowered to bridge divides, resolve conflicts, and foster deep connection in any community or professional setting.  

 

This is why empathy has become central to how AI is viewed in customer experience. Scale still matters. Efficiency still matters. But neither of those creates trust on its own. Empathy does. The challenge is that empathy has traditionally been personal and situational, while scale is anything but.

Empathy at scale is not about making machines emotional. It is about building systems that can recognise when emotion is present and respond appropriately. Sometimes that response is to assist. Sometimes it is time to step aside.

" by Takuya Yoshiike

If empathy is considered a trait, highly empathic individuals may be more likely to act to relieve another’s distress than those who are less empathic. In line with these observations in real-life situations, experimental evidence has accumulated that an individual expresses more empathy to another with a similar social background than to one with a different background, indicating the importance of social relatedness in the expression of empathy.

For instance, how and which empathy networks are recruited when observing pain in another may vary depending on whether the pain receiver is a close friend of the observer. In addition, animal studies have shown that the strength of pain or fear that a mouse exhibits when observing another experiencing pain or fear was increased when these two mice were socially related, such as cage mates, but not when they were strangers to one another. These findings both provide an opportunity to reconsider empathy as a state and emphasize the importance of interpersonal factors in the regulation of empathy."

Training Objectives
Empathy has become a slightly awkward word in some business circles.

For some, it feels politically loaded. For others, it sounds soft, indulgent, or vaguely off-trend. There’s a concern that focusing on feelings somehow dilutes logic, weakens authority, or distracts from “what really matters”.

And yet, quietly and consistently, the people who communicate best, lead most effectively, resolve conflict fastest, and get the best results are usually the ones who understand people.

Not agree with them.
Not indulge them.
Understand them.
This training course is a defence of empathy — not as a moral stance or cultural fashion, but as a practical business skill. A tool for getting things done, reducing conflict, winning cooperation, and increasing influence at work..

Should all points of view be heard from? Defending certain values and ideas makes it a bit more complicated than simply listening to all sides.

Listening is not neutrality

One explanation for these differing interpretations comes from a recent series of experiments showing speakers often confuse “active listening” with agreement. Even when they had maintained eye contact and signaled attention using short phrases like “I see,” listeners who disagreed were consistently judged as worse listeners. Because people tend to assume their own views are correct, they often infer that anyone who disagrees must not have listened well.

Bio: Edwin Rutsch is Founding Director of The Empathy Center, and a leading organizer in the global Empathy Movement. He is a creator and long-time advocate of the Empathy Circle practice—a simple yet powerful tool for building understanding and bridging divides.  (LinkedIn) (Facebook) (Website)

Topic: Why The Empathy Circle is the Foundational Practice of the Empathy Movement.

Abstract:   "Empathy is often discussed as an abstract feeling, but to become a social reality, it requires a practical, scalable application. In this presentation, I will demonstrate why the Empathy Circle is the essential 'operating system' for this shift. 

As the definitive 'gateway practice,' the Circle provides a structured and replicable framework for mutual active listening. It is more than just a tool; it is the primary training ground for the mindset and skills required to scale the Empathy Movement globally."

Bio: Marie Miyashiro trains global corporate leaders in her The Empathy Factor book process and coaches Nonviolent Communication trainers to do the same. (LinkedIn) (Facebook) (Website) 

Bio: Ranjitha Jeurkar is a Certified Nonviolent Communication trainer from Bangalore, India who helps teams work better together.   (LinkedIn) (Facebook) (Website)

Topic:  An Empathy Movement in Organizations: Making Empathy Repeatable, Transferable and Scalable

Abstract:  Three key lessons from first-hand experience bringing a movement of empathy into organizations. What does empathy look like in organizations – not just in interpersonal interactions, but as lived culture? And what does it take to transform organizational cultures so that effectiveness, efficiency, and empathy go hand-in-hand?

Marie Miyashiro and Ranjitha Jeurkar share their experience working with organizations with the 3x3 Empathy Factors® framework, based on the Nonviolent Communication process and field-tested in over 60 countries and 55,000 employees with a 93 to 100 percent participant satisfaction rating. 

Bio:  Managing Director of EmpathyLab, a UK not for profit which activates, develops and celebrates the power of stories to build real life empathy.  Passionate advocate for social equity and creating the conditions to raise thriving generations within connected communities. (LinkedIn) (Website)

Topic:  From Story Time to System Change: How Reading Can Power the Empathy Movement   

Abstract:   EmpathyLab is working with cross sector partners in the UK to drive forward a powerful, accessible reading-based empathy education. Explore how this evidence-led approach is changing the narrative, impacting 1 million children each year, and raising empathy-educated generations inspired to create a better world for everyone.  What are we doing now, and what comes next?

Note: This is an in-person event in Mountain View, CA.

Politics is about persuasion—reaching out, person to person, and bringing others along. But persuasion doesn’t mean you’re rattling off statistics, arguing about policy, or convincing someone to do a 180º on the spot. In fact, persuasion starts with listening.

In a fractured political environment, it is both more challenging and more important to engage with those who might not vote like us (or not vote at all!). We know talking with voters works, but more often than not, Democratic campaigns start too late and target too narrowly. They underinvest in persuasion conversations, and ignore 1 in 4 potential voters because they’re unlisted or mislisted in the data Democrats rely on. Swing Left's new Ground Truth canvassing program will change that. By starting early and having empathetic listening conversations with every voter, we’re uncovering concerns that campaigns need to address, earning trust in communities that might feel overlooked, and making sure Democrats are speaking to what people actually want. That’s how we help Democrats flip the House in the 2026 midterm elections.

Social network scientists have shown that emotions and values can spread in a community with the same patterns as infectious diseases. They have described how the people who are most connected to others may be the first ones to get hot gossip, but they are also most likely to get the scary new virus that has just shown up in town. These observations suggest an interesting opportunity for making health care better, and even more efficient – if health care organizations can figure out how to create an “epidemic of empathy.”

EAP Ask the Expert – Helen Riess, MD, Director of the Empathy and Relational Science Program, Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital; Founder and Chief Scientific Officer, Empathetics, Inc.

We all notice it – there is disconnection in the World. Authentic engagement, kindness, patience and empathy have all taken a hit. According to the Stress in America Report,

- More than 60% of adults report that societal division is a significant source of stress
- Fifty-four percent feel left out or lack companionship
- Sixty-nine percent said they needed more emotional support in the past year than they received

The term empathy is thrown around a lot but what does it actually mean? Dr. Riess describes it not as one thing but rather, as a capacity – an ability to perceive the emotions, and in particular, the suffering of others, and to act on this. Contrary to what is commonly assumed about empathy, it’s not just a feeling, but includes thinking, reasoning and acting. Research shows that empathy is tied to brain mechanisms and activation of neurons.

Empathy is an important skill to teach young children about. In our classroom it looks like two partners using their active-listen skills and taking turns to share their ideas. Empathy in our classroom also looks like one friend showing support to another when they are feeling sad. The supportive friend stops and takes the time to listen and offer ideas for how to work through the big emotions.

1. The 1% Shift in Empathy
This shift moves you from assumption to perspective-taking. Remember, empathy isn’t, and can never be, a grand emotional performance. In practice, it’s more like a humble willingness to consider what someone else might be feeling before you react.

Empathy flourishes in relationships that feel safe and nonjudgmental, and it grows in tiny increments with repeated practice. A large meta-analysis of more than 24,000 participants’ data found that people with more secure attachment consistently show higher empathy, while avoidant attachment predicts lower empathy.

Despite the necessary focus on clinical skills and knowledge during the tertiary education of healthcare professionals, the literature highlights the importance of developing psycho-social competencies. Empathy, a cognitive-behavioral attribute linked to various benefits for patients and healthcare professionals, is one such competency.

Pedagogical approaches to successfully develop empathy in tertiary healthcare students are available. However, these approaches are often integrated piecemeal throughout the tertiary education journey. Research on a more empathy-focused curriculum is scarce. This manuscript describes the design of a study that aims to examine the effects of a more empathy-focused curriculum on empathy in tertiary healthcare profession students in Singapore. 

Active empathic listening (AEL) is a multi-dimensional, nonjudgmental type of listening that extends beyond the verbal message conveyed and includes understanding the inner world of the individual and consciously reflecting this understanding [1,2,3]. Thus, AEL establishes the basis of a relationship of trust and deepens interactions [4]. Within this context, AEL is not only a communication skill but also a multi-dimensional skill that encompasses interpersonal communication competence, emotional awareness, and professionalism [1, 5].

AEL was developed by Rogers and Farson in 1957 based on the person-centered approach and essentially goes beyond the words communicated, focusing on the emotions, experience, and self-understanding behind the words from the individual’s perspective. This type of interaction not only helps individuals move beyond defense mechanisms but also makes them feel safe and reveals their capacity for change and development in a meaningful relationship. Because this relationship is mutual, it initiates a process of mutual transformation through developing self-awareness in both the speaker and listener [1]. Within this context, the value of AEL becomes even more apparent when considering nursing students preparing for their profession, which focuses on each person’s uniqueness and involves constant interaction. From this, the communication process reaches into the speaker’s inner world to ensure mutual interaction [1].