Empathy

Resistance to empathy: like Sisyphus pushing that boulder up hill?!

Resistance to Empathy (Part 1): Organizational Resistance to Empathy and How to Overcome It

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that make organizations successful are not always the qualities that enhance their empathy. Hear me say it, and not for the last time: the things that make us good at business, including the corporate transformation of American medicine and education, do not always expand our empathy. What to do about it? The battle is joined. The recommendation? Let your customers, constituents, or stake-holders train you in empathy: Realize that if you do not respond empathically, the customers are just going to go quietly to the competitor that does. Empathy is good for business. If the customer has a complaint that he is having trouble expressing, then use one’s listening skills to get to the bottom of things.

The Parable of the Good Samaritan: Two experience empathic distress and pass by - the Samaritan recognizes his neighbor in the survivor

The Natural Empath Encounters the Good Samaritan

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Cross the street away from the neighbor to “down regulate” your empathy, and experience less empathic distress; and cross the street towards your neighbor to expand your empathy in the direction of creating an inclusive community of persons, who recognize the value of cooperation. 

The Case of Dr Know-It-All: Empathy gives us our humanity

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One does not need a philosopher to tell one what empathy is. What then does one need? How about a folktale, a fairy tale, a Märchen? Rather than start with a definition of empathy, my proposal is to start by telling a couple of stories, in which empathy (and its breakdown) plays a crucial role. Both stories are anonymous folktales from the collection edited by the Brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. The distilled wisdom of the ages accumulated in traditional anonymous narratives will do nicely. Now available to listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6pCIwUknKqxZwIqau0m1YW

Cover art: Politics of Empathy by Anthony Clohesy

Review: Politics of Empathy by Anthony Clohesy

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Clohesy’s big idea is that empathy is about identity and similarity, but it is just as fundamentally about differences. Key term: empathy of differences. This provides a powerful angle on that vexing issue of empathy and ethics, which has the frustrating aspect of being a chicken and egg dilemma.

Empathy, Brain Science, Stress Reduction – the Video!

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This is your mind on neuroscience – mirror neurons: do they exist, and if not, what about it?
Sperry on the split brain: the information is in the system: how to get at it
The neuroscience of trauma – and how empathy gives us access to it
MRI research: as when Galileo looked through the telescope, a whole new world opens

Top 10 Empathy Trends in 2021

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It’s gettin’ crowded under the bus. We confront the paradox of “embracing” our socially distanced neighbor. There is something about humans that makes us want to breathe on one another. Empathy? There is nothing that says an empathy trend has to be positive – but don’t try and hold your breath. Expanding neighborliness is the ultimate empathy trend.