Empathy fatigue does not typically present as disengagement. Instead, it shows up as cognitive and emotional narrowing. Practitioners may become more focused on resolution than exploration, rely more heavily on precedent than context, and show reduced tolerance for ambiguity. In this state, there can be a stronger pull towards control, tightening processes, streamlining decisions or seeking to limit further escalation.

From reactions to the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks to gender ideology and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), author and scholar Gad Saad warns that Western civilization is on the brink of collapse. In his new book, “Suicidal Empathy: Dying to Be Kind,” Saad argues that the West has taken compassion to a dangerous place by prioritizing ideological virtue-signaling over truth and common sense.

“I’m not in the least bit arguing that empathy is a bad thing, but just like Aristotle explained to us several millennia ago, all good things in moderation,” Saad told Fox News Digital.

“If you’re not in the least bit empathetic, you’re likely to be a psychopath, if you are too empathetic, if it hyperactivates, if it targets the wrong people in the wrong circumstances, then that becomes suicidal empathy,” he explained.

Now let’s talk about empathy.

A year ago this month, I wrote a newsletter warning about a new trend on the MAGA Christian right. Christian theologians and influencers had begun warning about the “sin of empathy” or “toxic empathy.”....

The problem in those cases isn’t with empathy, which is a vital human virtue, but rather in its selective application. Just as we wouldn’t call love a sin because we might be stingy in our love, empathy isn’t a sin because its application is incomplete.

Or, put another way, our problem isn’t with too much empathy, but too little. We’re unwilling to place ourselves in other people’s shoes, to try to understand who they are and what their lives are like.

It’s hard to talk about this issue without recognizing a fundamental truth of the moment: The attack on empathy would have gained very little traction in the church if Donald Trump weren’t president. He delights in vengeance, and he owes his presidency to the evangelical church.

by Nick Hobson and Gregory J. Depow

Empathy has become a baseline expectation of modern leadership, but practiced without judgment it can backfire, leaving leaders depleted and employees feeling misunderstood. Effective leadership requires a more discerning approach: wise empathy, which recognizes that different emotional moments call for different responses.

Sharing in employees’ negative emotions can accelerate burnout, while responding to those with compassion and support can protect both leaders and teams. The opposite is often true for positive emotions, which benefit from shared celebration. If leaders take five steps designed to guide them in the practice of wise empathy, they can strengthen relationships, improve engagement and retention, and support others without losing their own footing

This online workshop is designed to help you develop one of the core components of emotion intelligence - empathy - and how, by building on this, through becoming more empathetic, you can also become more assertive. The terms ‘empathy’ and ‘assertive’ are often misunderstood, and within this session you will gain clarity and further insight into what they really mean, why this matters, and how to be more empathetic and assertive in your work and all parts of your life.

This interactive and fun workshop, facilitated by specialist Conscious Leadership Coach Chris Cooper, will help stimulate new insights and give you practical tools to develop the skills of empathy and assertiveness, and how to combine them.

This is a three-hour online workshop, delivered over Zoom

Join our three-day course at the University of Leicester to master empathy teaching in healthcare. Boost patient care, overcome barriers, and lead with compassion.

Sir Bob Burgess Building, University of Leicester, UK

This innovative and pioneering training course provides clinicians, educators and academics with the skills needed to develop empathy teaching in their own setting. In addition, attendees will learn to support others to recognise the barriers and challenges to embedding empathy across the systems they work in, and to develop effective strategies for overcoming them.

Empathy benefits both patients and practitioners: become an expert in teaching this essential skill!

Thinking of joining us? Watch the video of Educating for Empathy 2024 for a taste of what to expect.

If we lose sight of why empathy matters, both individual dignity and democracy suffer

By C. Daryl Cameron

In the weeks before and after the U.S. presidential election, many of us are asking about the role of empathy in American politics. Does it matter whether candidates express care for their constituents, and what does a person’s vote says about their ability or willingness to empathize with others?

Empathy is important to democracy—but it’s complicated to understand, as scientists and philosophers have long tried to study in practice. I am one of those scientists. As we use it in our day-to-day lives, we often mean sharing others’ emotions, such as feeling someone else’s sorrow or joy, but can also mean showing compassion or concern for their suffering or understanding and believing their hurt or joy.

Empathy over judgment: Obama urged liberals not to label all Trump voters as racist, saying many act out of economic desperation and a search for alternatives.

Shared voter base: She noted some Trump supporters also voted for Barack Obama, highlighting their dissatisfaction with the political system rather than strict ideology.

Call for solutions: Obama stressed the need for leaders to address middle- and working-class struggles to prevent 'bad choices' driven by lack of opportunity.

Even when we try to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes, we’re often missing the deeper frameworks that shape how they think and act.

In this lecture, Konner Brewer, Stanford Lecturer and Product Manager for Applied AI at Google, explores why understanding others is more complex than it seems. Through case studies and classic experiments, she reveals a key insight: people can’t always explain why they do what they do.

Instead, we rely on stories - our own and others’ - to make sense of behavior. This talk challenges conventional ideas of empathy, because in a globalized world, if we want to truly connect with others, it’s not enough to feel what we would feel in their position, we have to learn how to see the world as they do.

Empathy—the ability to sense another's emotions, to imagine their inner world, to feel with them—is not a decorative feature of human consciousness. It is the foundational architecture upon which relationships, communities, and civilizations are built. It is what stops a hand mid-strike, what draws us toward a stranger's tears, what compels sacrifice for unseen others. And it is facing an existential threat from the very tools designed to bring us together.