Empathy, or understanding the feelings of others, is helpful in both personal relationships and the workplace. Conveying empathy is a skill that can be learned. Some people feel genuinely for another person, but have a hard time exhibiting how much they care. Other people have difficulty putting themselves in another's shoes, but studies show that by conveying empathy, a person actually feels more empathetic.
Step 1
Show you care with "attending behaviors" -- physical cues that show you are listening and are interested in what the other person has to say.
The evening – hosted by Sarah Polley – began with a short speech by Premier Kathleen Wynne, followed by a screening of award-winning director Alex Gabbay’s documentary Love Hate and Everything In Between. An animated panel discussion moderated by CBC host Jian Ghomeshi featured Gabbay, esteemed researcher Marvin Berkowitz and Roots of Empathy Founder/President Mary Gordon. In her welcoming remarks, Wynne lauded Gordon for successfully turning her unique insights into such an effective program.
“[Roots of Empathy] is not just a great program. It’s genius because it understands that empathy is inside all of us, and the baby elicits it. That is what Mary saw … and it is genius.”
Therapy can feel stuck, stymied and aimless, but fits and starts may be a necessary aspect of transformative therapeutic processes. Of course, this is because problems outside of therapy show up in the consulting room. Therapy feels stuck when the domains of choice are too restricted or rigid, when the people involved are unable or unwilling to engage in the options each party invites and attempts.
How does the process of being stuck and unstuck proceed? This depends partly on how and whether the therapist and client can engage in a co-constructed improvisational activity. Empathy is necessary since its absence may be why the therapy is stuck in the first place. Empathy is required for therapeutic improvisation.
A conversation between Frans de Waal, author of "The Age of Empathy: Nature's Lessons for a Kinder Society," and Carl Zimmer, Discover magazine. For more inf...
People with psychopathic tendencies—who may constitute upwards of 15 percent of prison populations—poorly activate parts of the brain responsible for empathy, according to a study in the April 24 JAMA Psychiatry online. While control subjects cringe when they see a person in pain, as when getting a hand slammed in a car door, prisoners who scored high on a test for psychopathy demonstrated little empathy. Functional magnetic resonance imaging of the brain indicated that those individuals also had subpar function in the orbital frontal circuit, which helps process emotions. Notably, some of the same brain areas are compromised in frontotemporal dementia (FTD). People with FTD may flout social norms and land in hot water. However, study senior author Kent Kiehl of the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque said he has seen no evidence that people with FTD are more likely to end up in the prison system as those with psychopathy are prone to do.
When you think of a church spreading hope and compassion, you may think of missionaries and pastors extending words of faith. But for Lutheran Charities, the perfect gift from God in time of trauma is often the perfect gift from God.
On Thursday afternoon, the Lutheran Charities K-9 Comfort Dogs visited Windrush Farm in North Andover to introduce two of their many dogs -- Shami and Isaiah -- for a meet-and-greet with local kids and their families.
The dogs travel to nursing homes, hospitals and other places to help people heal emotionally, spiritually and even physically.
She created the classroom initiative Roots of Empathy in Toronto in 1996. It is now taught around the world
There is a story Mary Gordon tells about Roots of Empathy, the education program she created that brings infants into classrooms to teach schoolchildren the basic value of fellow-feeling.
It involves a teenager named Darren, a boy who had survived a violent childhood and numerous foster homes. At 14, he was still in Grade 8, the only kid in his class with the beginnings of a beard. As with all Roots of Empathy classes (the program began in Toronto in 1996 and has spread around the world), a mother brought her infant to meet the students over the course of a year, so that they can use the baby to identify and understand emotions.
Understanding and fostering positive relationships with others – particularly those who hold divergent points of view from our own – has often thought to be enhanced by the ability to “walk a mile in someone else’s shoes.” Yet, a literal interpretation of this advice seems impractical and unhelpful. Thus, we are left to wonder whether “walking a mile in someone else’s moccasins” will truly benefit one’s relationships and, if so, why these benefits might occur.
Social–psychological research has suggested that being imitated changes the way that we experience others: We like someone who imitates us more, and the interaction with this person runs more smoothly. Whether being imitated also affects basic social reactions, such as empathy for pain, is an open question.
Empathy for pain refers to the observation that perceiving another person in pain results in pain-related brain activation in the observer. The aim of the present study was to combine the two lines of research, to investigate whether being imitated can influence empathy for pain. To this end, we developed an experimental approach combining an imitation task with a pain perception task.
Dan Zahavi is a Professor in the Department of Media, Cognition, and Communication at the University of Copenhagen, where he specializes in the social dimension of self-experience; the nature of empathy and its relevance for social cognition; the relation between phenomenology and naturalism; selfhood and unity of consciousness with particular focus on no-self doctrines. Dan is the director of the Danish National Research Foundation’s Center for Subjectivity Research.
The center has a grant for an "Empathy and Interpersonal Understanding" project that runs from 2011 to 2015. The aim of the project is to contribute to investigate two questions:
1) What is empathy and what role does it play in interpersonal understanding?
2) To what extent does interpersonal understanding presuppose a common social and cultural background?
Dan has written numerous articles on the nature of empathy and the center is hosting workshops and conferences on the topic. One conference being held in May 2013, is on the "Phenomenology of Empathy".
Aurangzeb Haneef is a religious scholar and teacher in the Department of Humanities & Social Sciences, Lahore University of Management Sciences in Pakistan. He completed a Masters of Theological Studies at Harvard University. Earlier, at two universities in Austria and Spain he completed an International Master in Peace, Conflict and Development Studies with a focus on Religion/Islam and Peacebuilding.
Aurangzeb is interested in Religion and Peacebuilding, especially from an Islamic perspective. In this dialog and interview, we talked about the role of empathy as being foundational to peace building. In Pakistan there is great polarization between the conservative and liberal social factions and they are not talking to each other with empathy. Aurangzeb sees empathy as being central to the the peace building process and he works to create dialog between the different social factions in his classes. Sub Conference: Science
Ian Reifowitz teaches history at Empire State College of the State University of New York. He is the author of, Obama's America: A Transformative Vision of Our National Identity.
In his article, Obama Calls for Empathy in Israel, Ian writes,"President Obama gave an absolutely terrific speech yesterday in Israel. The key section of the speech occurred when the president declared that Israelis need to truly understand how Palestinians see the conflict differently than they do. Obama urged them to "put yourself in their shoes.
Maryam Sakeenah is a social worker, teacher, and freelance writer living in Lahore, Pakistan. She teaches Literature, Islamic Studies and Sociology. She is leading a project for virtual education for underprivileged school children. Maryam also authored a book documenting Islamic and Oriental responses to the Clash of Civilizations, titled Us Versus Them and Beyond: An Oriental-Islamic Rejoinder to the Clash of Civilizations Theory.
I talked with Maryam from her home in Lahore, Pakistan about her article, The Murder of Human Empathy. This article was her response to the recent attacks on Christian homes in Lahore. She writes, "Empathy is curbed and limited through narrow, parochial banners of ethnicity, nationalism, race and creed so that the empathic drive does not extend to the out-group. The out-group is then ‘otherised’. However, a more severe form of this is dehumanization of the other, often institutionalized by the social superstructure: state, media, education, religion.
Do you watch the television show “Undercover Boss”? I do, and I am continually amazed what leaders learn from the bottom up perspective.
Honestly, in the old days, I would have said emotional intelligence was psycho babble threatening the very fabric of our military. Today, I am grateful to understand the need for emotionally intelligent leaders.
Humans (yes that includes Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines) desire supportive relationships; empathy allows leaders to build and maintain these supportive relationships.
SO WHAT IS EMPATHY?
Empathy Defined
Dr. Carl Rogers defined empathy as “entering into the private perceptional world of the other and becoming thoroughly at home in it…To be with another in this way means that for the time being, you lay aside your views and values in order to enter another’s world without prejudice. In some sense it means you lay aside yourself.”
Empathy involves the accurate communication of an appreciation of another person's ongoing intentional actions in a fashion that the other person can tolerate. This appreciation requires understanding the other person's view of their world and of their place in it.
Empathy is an ordinary feature of life, a natural aspect of the unfolding improvisation of our linked behaviors. We act together from our understanding of what the other is trying to do.
But sometimes empathy is difficult to maintain. When we are preoccupied, when we are stressed, when our circumstances have been significantly altered, we may lose the attuned connection we take for granted.
“The Parameters of Empathy: Core Considerations for Psychotherapy and Supervision”, The Advances in Descriptive Psychology, Vol. 10, in press.
Dr. Anita Nowak, Director of the Social Economy Initiative, McGill University
Here's a video of my friend Anita Nowak giving the keynote address at an Empathy Conference at University of Minnesota at Duluth.
She starts off by saying, "We need a massive infusion of empathy on a global scale if we are to survive as a species!" and then covers the following areas..
This playlist offers elementary school teachers unique Canadian resources that will help students explore, discuss, and ultimately express empathy, an essential skill for navigating the diversity and conflicts inherent in our global community.
At the most basic level, empathy can be described as “the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.” Empathy allows children to see the world from other people’s perspectives and to walk, if only for a few steps, in their shoes.
In schools, empathetic children listen to conflicting points of view and are capable of exploring peaceful solutions. When they see someone being hurt or bullied, these children refuse to be passive bystanders; instead, they speak up. Young people with a strong sense of empathy extend a helping
Joe Brummer, associate executive director of Community Mediation Inc., enlightened staff at a recent ITS Lunch & Learn about empathy and its place in the work environment. Joe discussed the financial and emotional costs when organizations lack empathy, as well as communication techniques and policy changes that can lead to increased productivity and creativity.
Linda Daniels looks at compassion fatigue among SA's medical personnel.
Bushkin distinguishes between the terms compassion fatigue, post -traumatic stress and burn out.
"Compassion fatigue is a new age term for having experienced a traumatic incident and being unable to process that incident emotionally. Post- traumatic stress has a diagnosis and involves, amongst others, vivid imagery and thinking about the event constantly. Burn out is where someone is putting in 19 hours a day, doesn’t eat well, is not getting enough exercise … (the condition) does not have to have emotions involved."
Brain patterns could warn of vulnerability to psychopathy.
Children with severe behavioral problems have a suppressed response to others' pain, according to new brain-scan research.
Researchers examined brain scans of kids with conduct disorder, which is marked by aggression, cruelty to others and anti-social behavior. Some kids with conduct disorder also display what psychologists call "callous-unemotional traits," which means they lack guilt and empathy.
This is an interesting report on current neuroscience research into the brains of children with conduct disorder. Children with Conduct Disorder (CD) often display "callous-unemotional traits", which means that they do not feel guilt or empathy towards other individuals. It is reported that children with CD have a suppressed response to others' pain. The brain scans performed on children with Conduct disorder and those without show a reduction in the brain activity of kids with conduct disorder when they view images of pain. This type of brain pattern appears to show a vulnerability to developing a psychopathy later on.
It is important to note that these kids are not destined to psychopathy, but just show a vulnerability. The goal of this type of research is to help determine why these kids are vulnerable in hopes of being able to treat them more effectively.
Disruptive students can be a big challenge for teachers in charge of a room full of 30 students. There isn’t always time to get to the bottom of student behavior and in a large class those students can derail learning for everyone. But what if there was a way to help kids stop acting out and show more empathy for classmates and teachers?
A group of Harvard education researchers have developed a virtual simulation for “walking in another person’s shoes” to help students relate to one another better. It’s part of a project calledSocial Aspects of Immersive Learning (SAIL) funded by the National Science Foundation. “The ability to accurately read people is really important to make compromises,” said Elisabeth Hahn, a doctoral candidate at the Harvard School of Education in a recent edWeb webinar.
Sylvia Morelli is a Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford Social Neuroscience Lab at Stanford University. In her current research, she examines the neural and behavioral basis of empathy and perspective-taking, as well as the neural responses associated with feeling understood by others.
We held a wide ranging discussion about the nature of empathy, and herwork on researching it. In a recent study and paper, Sylvia explored the neural and behavioral consequences of feeling understood.
Sylvia says, when we are understood, or empathized with, the pleasure centers of the brain light up. In other words, feeling empathized with feels good. "Behavioral research has demonstrated that feeling understood by others enhances social closeness and intimacy, as well as subjective well-being. In contrast, feeling misunderstood can be harmful to social relationships, leading to loneliness and isolation. However, it is still unclear why and how felt understanding exerts such a powerful impact on both interpersonal and intrapersonal well-being"
"Behavioral research has demonstrated that feeling understood by others enhances social closeness and intimacy, as well as subjective well-being. In contrast, feeling misunderstood can be harmful to social relationships, leading to loneliness and isolation. However, it is still unclear why and how felt understanding exerts such a powerful impact on both interpersonal and intrapersonal well-being"
Maureen O'Hara is Professor in the Psychology Department at National University, La Jolla, CA and President Emerita of Saybrook Graduate School, San Francisco.Working with American psychologist Carl R. Rogers, she helped develop the Person-Centered Approach to psychotherapy and large group process.
More recently her writings have examined the relationship between the "big picture" changes underway and internal psychological adaptation. Combining her background as psychotherapist, organizational consultant and futurist, Maureen is a frequent keynote speaker nationally and internationally on the evolution of new ways of being in a changing world. She was a contributor to the book, ' Empathy Reconsidered: New Directions in Psychotherapy' .
She writes, "In Rogers' original work a key component of the core facilitative conditions for individual growth is empathy. Empathy has since been shown to be the gold standard for effective facilitation in any growth-focused relationship. Empathy is commonly regarded as an individual-to-individual phenomenon in which one person senses the unspoken or inchoate thoughts or feelings of another. Our observations show that group or relational empathy may be even m
Riane Eisler is a social scientist, attorney, and author whose work on cultural transformation has inspired both scholars and social activists. Her research has impacted many fields, including history, economics, psychology, sociology, and education. She has been a leader in the movement for peace, sustainability, and economic equity, and her pioneering work in human rights has expanded the focus of international organizations to include the rights of women and children.
In her newest book, The Real Wealth of Nations: Creating a Caring Economics, Riane says; "When children are taught the “normality” of domination and submission - and society doesn't offer alternatives - they often learn to go into denial and inhibit their capacity for empathy and consciousness,. They then build family, educational, religious, economic, and political institutions based on the these principles when they grow up. And so the cycle repeats itself generation after generation." "Ridged top-down rankings, weather family or state, are artificial barriers to trust, empathy, and caring."
Robert Brooks is one of today's leading speakers on the themes of resilience, motivation, and family relationships. During the past 30 years, Dr. Brooks has presented nationally and internationally to thousands of parents, educators, mental health professionals, and business people with a message based on encouragement, hope, and resilience. He is on the faculty of Harvard Medical School and the former Director of the Department of Psychology at McLean Hospital.
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Caring for your patients and/or players is always key in a successful partnership