Empathy Lessons Training Seminar (ELTS)

Empathy is oxygen for the soul. Short of breath? Maybe one needs expanded empathy. Get some empathy and expand yours in this seminar. A rigorous and critical empathy says: I know what you feel because I feel it, too, as a vicarious experience, not a merger. It is not as if parents, teachers, doctors, therapists, friends, and neighbors, needed an expert to tell them what empathy is. Ask any parent, teacher, behavioral health professional, and they practice empathy every day, even if they may not always be able to say it out loud. This seminar brings forth what you already know about empathy – what you have already learned since you could not survive without empathy – and expands it with abundant tips, techniques, and real-world transformation in exercising empathy as a power and practice. 

A detailed outline (syllabus) of the seminar, benefits you will obtain by participating, and agreements for participants follow inline. 

Here is how to register (click below ELTS): 

Empathy Lessons Training Seminar Syllabus Outline – this is the outline of the seminar

Every Saturday for ten weeks Sept 12, 2026 thru Nov 21, 2026 at 11 am CDT – starts after Labor Day (USA) and ends before Thanksgiving (USA) via Zoom

Seminar Syllabus Outline:

Session One: The one-minute empathy training. 

Talking points:

• Personal note: The beginning of my empathy training     
• The multi-dimensional definition of empathy       
• Empathic receptivity and vicarious experience                    
• Empathic understanding—understanding of possibility     
• Where there is “mind reading” there is “mind misreading”
• The folk interpretation of empathy: Top-down empathy     
• There is enough empathy to go around, even though it

does not seem that way on most days. Why is that?

Session Two: Empathy and brain science – this is your brain on empathy 

Talking points:

• Mirror neurons – what are those?                                          
• Stress and inflammation: Some is good, too much is not
• Social stress enters the body through the immune system  
• Connecting the dots: stress and inflammation                      
• Connecting the dots: anti-inflammation and empathy         
• Empathy as a “Miracle drug”
• Empathy is a spa treatment for the soul

Session Three: Empathy breakdowns and introspection 

Talking points:

• Emotional contagion is failed empathy                              
• The analogy of optical illusions with empathy breakdowns     
• Empathic receptivity breaks down as emotional contagion    
• Empathic understanding breaks down as conformity
• Empathic interpretation breaks down as projection               
• Empathic response breaks down and gets “lost in translation”       
• Introspection is the royal road to empathy; be introspective

Session Four: Resistance to empathy

Talking points:

• Overcome resistance to empathy, and empathy expands
• Train and develop empathy by overcoming the obstacles to

empathy

• “Listen from possibility” rather than listening from a “position X”:

• Distinguish between what happened and what one made it mean

• Empathy is a tuner or dial, not an “on-off” switch
• Empathy is a method of data gathering about the other person:

• Be generous with acknowledgement

Session Five: The Secret underground history of empathy

Talking points:

The distinction “empathy” was a part of sympathy, fellow feeling, vicarious feeling, communicability of affect in aesthetics and art history, and storytelling is discussed through different methods of inquiry. The session includes short selections from the philosophers, phenomenologists, and psychoanalysts 

• David Hume, 
• Immanuel Kant, 
• Theodor Lipps, 
• Sigmund Freud, 
• Heinz Kohut, 
• Husserl/Edith Stein, 
• Max Scheler

Session Six: Empathy and story telling

Talking points:

And, yes, we are going to tell some stories.

• The “Natural Empath”: Caught between nature and nurture   
• The Good Samaritan meets the Natural Empath

Example of empathy from World Literature including

• Toni Morrison
• George Eliot (Marion Evans)
• Thomas Mann
• Albert Camus
• Goethe                                                                                                                                   

Session Seven: Empathy and boundary setting

Talking points:

• Get your power back through empathy
• Establish and maintain firm boundaries between the self

and Other in relating empathically, but practice being inclusive:

• Empathy deescalates anger and rage:
• Empathy is the ultimate anti-bullying anti-dote – 
• When (why) empathy doesn’t work with bullies, psychopaths, and the criminally insane – and what to do about it
• Empathy is closely related to humor
• Empathy lessons are everywhere

Session Eight: Review of the literature that empathy is good for one’s health and well being

Talking points:

• Empathy is trainable – practice, you get better at it
• The empathy exams
• What counts as evidence that empathy works?                         
• Evidence-based empathy
• Jumping out of an airplane – be sure to wear a parachute         
• Common factor, empathy, in social healing practices                 

Session Nine: Speaking truth to power – rhetorical empathy in politics

Talking points:

• Truth versus politics
• The first instance of fake news—ever                                
• Empathic receptivity soothes anger and rage                        
• Empathic understanding discloses political vision                
• Empathic interpretation engages intractable problems        
• Rhetorical empathy: Empathic responsiveness                     
• Malcolm-X’s rhetorical empathy                                            
• John Stuart Mill’s rhetorical empathy                                    
• Governor Altgeld’s rhetorical empathy                                  
• Ronald Regan’s rhetorical empathy                                       
• Lincoln’s rhetorical empathy                                                 

Session Ten: Empathy is the new love – examining love through the lens of empathy

Talking points: So If empathy is the new love, what then was the old love?

• Defining Our Terms: Love and Empathy                            
• Empathy and love have characteristic breakdowns         
• The unbearable lightness of empathy                                
• Design defects of the male brain                                         
• Women and men want the same things—but differ in priority           
• The desire of desire                                                              
• The Positive Aspects of Love as Empathic Relatedness    
• From Death in Venice (a story) to Empathy in Venice
  Love as a boundary issue: Empathy as a soothing balm

Shortcode

Top Benefits of the Empathy Lessons Training Seminar – these are the benefits –

The answer is empathy – so what’s the question? Stress pushes people down into survival. People stress other people, being difficult to deal with at home, on the job, in school, or at leisure with friends. In the Empathy Lessons Training Seminar (ELTS) the participants get an opportunity to engage directly the obstacles that stopping them from getting the empathy. Participants acquire the empathic responsiveness needed to experience satisfaction in relationships of all kinds, personal and professional. Participants overcome the obstacles to effective relationships and shift out of survival mode and into empathic responsiveness in which fulfillment and satisfaction occur that did not previously seem possible. 

The top benefits of the empathy lessons training seminar that the participant will receive include expanded empathy and – 

1. reduced conflict in one’s life and one’s organization, reducing dignity violations, shame, and related anger and rage

2. expanded power and freedom in the face of resistance, no agreement, or bullying

3. reduced time to results in personal and professional projects, expanding teamwork 

4. expanded listening one other individuals and to oneself

5. expanded results in personal relationships 

6. reduced compassion fatigue, burnout, professional cynicism or denial  

7. expanded cooperation in one’s personal and professional relations, increasing satisfaction with one’s individual and organizational goals

8. the ability to be with another person no matter how difficult an individual

9. the ability to distinguish what happened from what one made it mean

10. ability to like people and be with people regardless of background 

11. distinguishing empathy effectively from compassion, altruism, and charity (they are not the same!)

12. the ability to recognize and acknowledge the humanness in oneself and others even in extreme situations

13. the ability to set boundaries in relatedness and navigate boundaries with finesse and skill – for example, in dealing with bullies

14. the ability to shift your empathy from being an “on off” switch to being a rheostat that dials empathy up and down as a filter

15. expanded humor, creativity, appreciation of art, and wisdom – all closely related to empathy – relationships, teamwork, and leadership

Also note:

Participants will get the most value from attending all the sessions. However, for those with scheduling challenges, it is not required to attend every session because every session (except the first) contains a short upfront review of terms and what the participant needs to know to get value from the work.  

The Empathy Lessons Training Seminar [ELTS] may be delivered as a stand-alone ten session class for participants who register individually. Alternatively, the ELTS may be delivered as part of an empathy consulting engagement. The organization’s team members are separately interviewed, confidential feedback aggregated anonymously and presented to the leadership, and group work on problem solving, conflict resolutions, issue handling, proceeds in parallel with large group work and small group breakout sessions under the guidance of the organization’s leadership. 

The benefits of the ELTS are most available to participants who attend all the sessions. People may selectively attend one or more session and still obtain significant benefit. Naturally, attending more sessions will result in expanded benefits. Whatever you do you are going to get empathy, and, no surprises here, you get out of it what you put into it.

Empathy Lessons Training Seminar (ELTS) Agreements

The Empathy Training Seminar (ELTS) is delivered through Alleingang, Inc., an Illinois Chapter C corporation, Lou Agosta, PhD, President, responsible for providing diverse services in education, consulting, and publishing. The trainer is Lou Agosta. The participants are the individuals who sign up, pay the fee, agreement to these agreements (hereafter: Agreements) and attend the training.

The ELTS is a ten session, structured conversation designed to expand empathy in the participant and in the community. The ELTS occurs as a two-hour session for ten weeks for a total of some twenty hours. 

The ELTS training material distributed to the participants is copy-righted material and the conversations that occurs in the seminar are confidential and for the personal use of the participants. It may not be recorded, copied, taped or otherwise captured to electronic media. Any notes taken by the participants are only for the personal use of the participants and may not be published, sold, or otherwise redistributed under any circumstances. 

The ELTS is committed to creating an environment where people have the freedom to express themselves and participate without restrictions. Therefore, the ELTS requests that you keep the names and details of what people say in the ELTS confidential. Participants will be separately asked to sign a document in which the person agrees to keep the names and details of what people say in the ELTS confidential, and such signature is a requirement for participating in the ELTS.

Further detailed agreements and background are specified in the online agreement document. The person considering participating is asked to review all these additional agreements carefully, let the trainer (LouAgosta@gmail.com) of any questions or concerns, and agree to the agreements in completing the registration process. 

Consistent with good business practices and current law, Alleingang, Inc. does not tolerate sexual harassment or other forms of harassment in any of our training programs or events. If you have any questions about our policies regarding sexual or other forms of harassment, please contact Lou Agosta (773-203-0269).

The participant hereby agrees to:

• To be on time for my sessions as scheduled
• To discuss and say what is on my mind and what is going on in my life without editing or holding back – to just tell the truth 
• Same idea as above – to be straight about what I am thinking and feeling – regardless of its significance or lack of significance to me or even if seems embarrassing or trivial
• If I have an emergency (for example, serious illness, life event, two feet of snow), then I will communicate as soon as I know about it
• If I have a complaint, concern, or issue with the empathy consultant or with the process of consulting, then I will come into my session and talk about it to resolve it
• I understand that on occasion empathy consulting requires me to consider and discuss confronting and difficult personal matters, including but not limited to my own behavior, blind spots, and thoughts 
• To pay the fee agreed upon for the ELTS with the 

understanding that it is nonrefundable

• To pay the fee agreed upon for the ELTS with the understanding that it is nonrefundable, though in the event of an authentic emergency a reasonable effort will be made to include the participant in a similar (“substitute”) future session
• To be responsible for my health and well-being at all times, in participating in this work

I acknowledge that our conversation and the ELTS are confidential and have received this written statement of confidentiality. Exceptions to confidentiality include [but are not limited to] if the trainer believes the participant is hurting or plans to hurt her- or himself or another person, for example, requiring summoning emergency [911] services. Then confidentiality would not apply.

By entering one’s name and date and related identifying data on the separately published ELTS form, the participant agrees to the Agreements.

For further info and/or to register click below (ELTS):

Image Credit: photo by Alex Zonis of Lou Agosta, PhD making a presentation on the Secret Underground History of Empathy on November 13, 2015 at a local Chicago adult education program.

(c) Lou Agosta, PhD and the Chicago Empathy Project

Categories: a rigorous and critical empathy, dark empathy, empathic distress, empathic responsiveness, empathy - the new love, empathy and storytelling, empathy in extreme situations, empathy is trainable, empathy readiness assessment, empathy training, empathy trends, extreme empathy, hard empathy and soft empathy

Tags: education, empathic distress, empathic receptivity, empathic responsiveness, Empathy, empathy lessons, empathy training, hard empathy, radical empathy, soft empathy, vicarious introspection