Contact Data: Lou Agosta, Ph.D.

Lou Agosta, PhD.

LAgosta at UChicago dot edu

LAgosta at theChicagoSchool dot edu

[note the “@” and “.” have been written out to thwart spam bots – you will have to put those back when you send an email]]

Phone (USA) 1-773-203-0269

BIO:

Do you feel like you are an empath (a sensitive soul) who can’t get sufficient empathy? I specialize in delivering empathy that makes a difference. My commitment is to provide a gracious and generous listening – empathy. I engage with client issues in emotions, relationships, and career. One area of concentration – an area that seems to be underserved – includes the dynamic containing and transforming of domestic violence and intimate partner abuse.

I have completed the Illinois Certified Domestic Violence training program and the Illinois Certified Partner Abuse Intervention program. I have made a positive difference with clients recovering from domestic violence, date rape, abuses of psychiatry in the former USSR, and matters that are personally traumatizing and confronting. In addition to dealing with client recovery from such traumatic encounters, I work with clients dealing with eating disorders, mood disorders, and issues in self psychology. I am the founder and director of The Chicago Empathy Project, including producing educational videos with the theme “A Rumor of Empathy…”

I teach and practice empathy lessons at Ross University Medical School at Saint Anthony Hospital (Chicago). Prior to publishing  Empathy Lessons, I am the author of three books (and numerous articles) on empathy including A Rumor of Empathy (Routledge 2015). Graduating as an unemployed philosopher from the University of Chicago with a Ph.D. in philosophy entitled “Empathy and Interpretation,” I earned my stripes as an independent scholar who regarded self-knowledge as an end in itself.

After graduate school I spent some time working in business and technology before realizing that the world does not need more data, it needs expanded empathy. And, yes, I acknowledge we need both data and empathy.

After undergoing over ten years of psychoanalyses, dynamic psychotherapy, and related training to recover from childhood and adolescent traumas, I resumed teaching and practicing empathy lessons. I have over ten years teaching experience at the college and university level in philosophy and psychology at such schools as Roosevelt University (Chicago), DePaul University, Loyola University, the Illinois School of Professional Psychology at Argosy University, and the Graham School of Continuing Education (University of Chicago).

I am committed to “getting out the word” about the importance and power of empathy, and I was the host of an Internet Talk Radio show entitled “A Rumor of Empathy” in the spring and summer of 2015, expanding empathy in the individual and the community. I provide introductory and advanced training, consulting, speaking, and teaching sessions and formal university level classes in empathy and related matters.

I have worked with, trained, consulted with, and (most importantly) listened to medical students, business people, educators, senior executives, middle managers, social workers, administrators, parents, and behavioral health professional (and others) on how to expand their empathy for success in relationships, careers, and what means the most to them in their lives. I am available to deliver individual and group empathy lessons. In addition to teaching, I am an empathy consultant in private practice, delivering individual and group empathy lessons (and coaching), near my home in Chicago, IL (USA).

(c) Lou Agosta, Ph.D. and The Chicago Empathy Project