Author Archives
Dedicated and committed that empathy becomes less of a rumor and more of an expanded reality in the community...
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Empathy: a spa treatment for the soul
My first training in stress reduction through empathy came from my dear Grandma Laura. With Grandma Laura the force of empathy was strong. However, she came from a time and place, prior to the Internet, that did not require much… Read More ›
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Empathy Curriculum: Overview of the Empathy Lessons Training Seminar (ELTS): Edwin Rutsch interviews Lou Agosta about the ELTS and Lou’s experiences around empathy
To listen to Edwin’s Rutsch’s interview and conversation with Lou Agosta on Sept 1, 2026. Play interview by clicking here: Edwin Rutsch Interviews Lou Agosta [ https://youtu.be/4jQe9ccVfM8?si=lwVibcPIN8D67v3w%5D The following summary was generated by AI by Edwin Rutsch (and Lou). Edwin… Read More ›
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Registration now open: Empathy Lessons Training Seminar (ELTS) Registration, Syllabus, Agreements
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… Read More ›
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Consider (take) the other person as your empathy trainer
As an exercise, consider that the other person is one’s empathy trainer. The other individual calls forth one’s empathy. If the Other behaves in a challenging way, the challenge is to one’s empathy. If the other person is in an… Read More ›
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Empathy sells; empathy’s limitations sell even better
But if empathy still sells, its limitations sell even better. The latest trend is to denounce empathy as a weakness and a danger to western civilization. What’s with that? How to answer the anti-empathy critics aidrectly and powerfully. Find out here.
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Hard empathy is different than “Empathy is Hard”
The distinction between Hard Empathy and Soft Empathy needs to be better known. Soft empathy does not work with bullies, psychopaths, and the criminally insane; which are difficult individuals where Hard Empathy can make a difference. The innovation proposed here is to think of empathy, like so many things these days, as existing on a spectrum between empathy as “empathic listening” and empathy as “tough love.” A rigorous and critical empathy includes both options, which map to the difference between “soft empathy” and “hard empathy,” and a sliding scale of possibilities in-between.
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Suicidal Empathy is Back in the News: Here is some “Tough Love” For Advocates of the Idea
Suicidal empathy is back in the news and deserves to be put in its proper place. Empathy exists on a spectrum between empathic kindness and “tough love”. This post contains some of each—but mostly tough love—for the anti-empathy skeptics. The… Read More ›
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Top Trends in Empathy for 2026
The trend of bringing large language models to empathy and empathic relatedness is a game changer. The question is not whether the generative AI can be empathic, but the extent to which the designers are able to distinguish responsiveness from “stroking one’s ego,” sycophancy (servile flattery), and the extent to which prospective clients decide to engage (both open questions at this date (Q1 2026)).
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Automating Empathy – Issues and Answers
I saw an advertisement today: “Empathy can’t be automated”
Made me think: What is the evidence pro and con?
The obvious question is “Well, can you?”
The debate is joined. This turns out to be a trick question. The intuition on my part is that one cannot automate empathy, but perhaps one can simulate it, and then the simulation turns out to be something quite like the “automating empathy” of the title.
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Empathy and tragedy – connecting the dots to a new definition of tragic drama
Radical empathy is attained when standard empathy honors the commitment to empathize in the face of empathic distress – the reaction on the part of audiences to circumstances in which tragic protagonists become entangled.This is empathy the “hard way,” and it is rare. However, no other way exists of attaining radical empathy than through empathy pure-and-simple….
