talk therapy

Art: QWERTY oil on board by Alex Zonis

Radical empathy is now a podcast

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This episode on Radical Empathy – what it is and why it is important – is the first in a series inquiring into radical empathy, what it is or whether it is just a rumor; how radical empathy differs from standard empathy; how radical empathy and everyday, standard empathy overlap and the dynamics of their interactions; how radical empathy makes a difference in situations when standard empathy breaks down and fails; and how the listener can expand his or her empathic skills, getting power over empathy and apply empathy in one’s lie, relationships, career, family, in the individual and in community.

Henry James’ Depiction of Unreliable Parental Empathy in “What Maisie Knew”

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James’ incomparable empathy with Maisie and his penetrating and astute comprehension of human relations writ large applies empathy in the extended sense to who people are as possibilities, walking in the other’s shoes (after, of course, first taking off one’s own to avoid projection), translating communications between adults and children (and adults and adults) as well as affect-matching and mis-matching (empathy in the narrow sense).

Prometheus by Gustave Moreau

How I Changed My Relationship to Pain

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Expanded power over pain is a significant result that may usefully be embraced by all human beings who experience pain – which describes just about everyone at some time or another. Acute pain communicates an urgent need for intervention; chronic pain is demoralizing and potentially life changing. 

Review: Empathy, Embodiment, and the Person: Husserlian Investigations of Social Experience and the Self by James Jardine

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Okay – the photo is kinda scary, but he is a really kind man. Will empathy solve the problem? Husserl himself withheld the manuscript of Ideas II from publication. He was not satisfied with the results, having been accused of succumbing to the problematic philosophical dead-end of solipsism, the inability to escape from the isolated self, knowing only itself.

Cover Art: Revolution of the Ordinary by Roil Moi

Revolution of the Ordinary by Toril Moi (Reviewed)

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Moi’s book uses Wittgenstein as a path to reading literature, asserting, like Wittgenstein, that “nothing is hidden.” It turns out that quite a lot is “hidden in plain view.” The “hermetic of suspicion” is roundly critiqued by Moi, but, I assert, in way uncharitably. Find out the details.