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Join the International Conference on: How Might We Build a Culture of Empathy and Compassion?

   

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International Online Conference on:
How Might We Build a Culture of Empathy?
Permanently Ongoing

Panels Index and Directory
http://j.mp/KGmFJE

 

Panel 01-A:  How Can We Build a Culture of Empathy and Compassion?

Ilene Fortune
Sherry McCreedy
Mutima Imani
Edwin Rutsch

Our first panel with some members of the empathy curriculum development team. We tested out the panel process and talked about how we can build a culture of empathy.
Sub Conferences: Education

     

Panel 01-B: How to Nurture, Foster & Teach Empathy in the Education System?

Ilene Fortune
Sherry McCreedy
Mutima Imani
Edwin Rutsch

Our second panel with some members of the empathy curriculum development team. We discussed How to Nurture, Foster & Teach Empathy in the Education System?
Sub Conferences: Education
 

 

Panel 02:  How does The No-Fault Zone Game teach and support creating a culture of empathy in schools?

Jared Finkelstein
Tom Gostinger
Victoria Hodson
Sophie B Langri

Sura Hart
Edwin Rutsch

The No-Fault Zone Game helps create a culture of empathy in schools by providing hands-on materials that students and teachers use throughout the school day to: understand themselves, empathize with others, solve problems, resolve conflicts collaboratively. The Game is also used to enrich academics, helping students understand characters in literature and history, and strengthen their own story-telling and writing.   Sub Conferences: Education

     

Panel 03: How Can We Build a Culture of Empathy?

Marco Iacoboni

Karen Gerdes

Rhonda Morton
Edwin Rutsch

 

Edwin Rutsch and Marco Iacoboni (Neuro Scientist), Karen Gerdes (Professor in School Of Social Work) and Rhonda Morton (Artist) explore the nature of empathy from different fields of study. We looked for ways to promote empathy in society.

     

Panel 04:  Fostering Empathy With the Arts

Lynn Johnson
Seung Chan Lim
Joan Kuenz
Tal-Chen Rabinowitch
Eva Vigran
Edwin Rutsch
 

This panel of guest artists from the fields of dance, music, theater, and design, shared their personal insights of how empathy plays a vital part in their various art forms.  The artists also outlined how they would make empathy front and center in our culture through their art form.
Sub Conferences: Arts

     

Panel 05: How Can We Build a Culture of Empathy?

Joe Brummer
Rhonda Morton
Edwin Rutsch
 

Edwin and Joe (mediator - empathy trainer), and Rhonda (artist) explore the nature of empathy from different fields of study. We looked for ways to promote empathy in society.

     

Panel 06: How does Empathy Show up in Your Restorative Justice Work?

Deb Witzel
Rea Blash
Laura Snider
Beverly Title

Edwin Rutsch

1. How do you all think restorative justice helps build empathy? Do you have a story of when you saw it or felt it?
2. When you are sitting in a restorative justice process how do you know when empathy is happening?
3. What ways do you work to build empathy when doing restorative justice?
4. What else would you like to say about restorative justice and empathy?
Sub Conference: Justice

     

Panel 07:  How to Create a Culture of Empathy with Men?

Owen Marcus

David Mabelle

Michael Welp

Edwin Rutsch
 

Owen Marcus moderates this panel discussion about how men can deepen their empathy and live more fulfilling lives. Owen, David and Michael facilitate men's groups.
 

     

Panel 08:  How Can We Build a Culture of Empathy & Compassion with the Occupy Movement?

 

Darci Shaver
Jon Ramer
David Hazen
Edwin Rutsch

 


 

Discuss how we can foster empathy and compassion as foundational values of the Occupy movement.

     

Panel 09: How to Build a Culture of Empathy in the Justice System

Joe Brummer
Victoria Pynchon

Edwin Rutsch

We follow-up talking about Victoria's Forbes article and explore How to Build a Culture of Empathy in the Legal and Justice System.
Sub Conference: Justice

     

Panel 10: Learning about Empathy and Compassion with Teenagers

Muna Awad
Vinciane Rycroft
Edwin Rutsch

Learning about Empathy and Compassion with Teenagers - The Experience of the Charter for Compassion in the Jordan.

 

Panel 011: Nurturing Empathy in the Home: Attachment and Reflective Capacity

Elle McSharry

Kim Beuhlman

Sarah Schumacher

Edwin Rutsch

Nurturing Empathy in the home: Attachment and reflective capacity.  
 

Kim, Sarah and Elle discuss promoting empathy, reflection, safety, and compassion in relationships between adults and the infants and toddlers in their care.

     

Panel 12: Building a Culture of Empathy with Empathic Action

Daniel Bassill
Bert Ola-Bergstrand

Bill Huddleston

Edwin Rutsch

How does empathy motivate actions of donors, volunteers and investors? This panel discussion brings together Bill Huddleston, a leading thinker in workplace fund raising in the USA, Bert Ola-Bergstrand, a social entrepreneur from Sweden, and Daniel F. Bassill, D.H.L., founder of the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC and Edwin Rutsch, director of the Center for Building a Culture of Empathy.

     

Panel 13: 1440 Challenge Participants Building Empathy Together

David A. Levine
Sura Hart
Molly Rowan
Edwin Rutsch

In this panel, four participants in the 1440 Challenge came together to dialog about their respective projects and how they nurture and foster empathy in our society. Each participant shared their work and then other panelists responded. Responses included: empathic listening, reflection about the project, rephrasing or restating what we heard, support, curiosity and questions about the project. We then made connections and collaborative plans for how we can work together to raise the level of empathy in society.

     

Panel 14: 1440 Challenge Semi-Finalists Building Empathy Together #2

Laura McMullin
Ingrid Stabb
James Hadlock
Mary Ann Brussal
Edwin Rutsch
In this panel, five Semi-Finalists in the 1440 Challenge came together to dialog about their respective projects and how they nurture and foster empathy in our society. Each participant shared their work and then other panelists responded. Responses included: empathic listening, reflection about the project, rephrasing or restating what we heard, support, curiosity and questions about the project. We then made connections and collaborative plans for how we can work together to raise the level of empathy in society.
     

Panel 15: How to build a culture of empathy and compassion with the interfaith community?

Geoffrey Mitelman:

Homayra Ziad

Jenny Peace

ORose
Edwin Rutsch
Not all participants could make it so we postponed this panel.
     

Panel 16: Ashoka Activating Empathy Competition Winners Hangout

Dina Buchbinder
Mark Rodriguez
Nicholas Carlisle
Laura Zax
Lauren Parnell Marino
Lennon Flowers
Ari Cowan
This is not a direct part of our conference but we include it as a resource. "The winners of the Ashoka Changemakers Activating Empathy competition discuss empathy in our education systems and how we can all work together to ensure all students learn this important skill" Several participants have done interviews for the conference.
     
     
Panel 17: How to Build a Culture of Empathy with Aikido?
Jerry Green
Nick Walker
Quentin Cooke
David Weinstock
Edwin Rutsch
Representatives of Aiki-Extensions, Inc from California, Washington State, England and the Center for Building a Culture if Empathy discuss and demonstrate how principles of Aikido entrain compassion and embody empathy around the world.

Bringing somatic attunement (embodied presence) to conflicted situations. Finding ground and center under pressure. Learning to listen to the different languages of the head, the heart and the wisdom of the belly.
Sub Conference: Aikido & Empathy

     
Panel 18: The Intersection of Conflict Resolution and Empathy

Cinnie Noble

Kenneth Cloke

Eileen Barker 

Lorraine Segal
Edwin Rutsch

 

 

How do conflict resolution professionals describe empathy? What are the connections between empathy and healing conflict? How do coaches and mediators build empathy for their clients and themselves? How do forgiveness and empathy connect? These eloquent, distinguished experts in the field have a free ranging discussion of these and other related questions.
Sub Conference: Justice
     
Panel 19: Challenge of Balancing Analysis and Empathy
Anthony Jack
Helen Riess
Richard Boyatzis
Edwin Rutsch
Recent evidence shows that adopting an analytic frame of mind suppresses brain areas involved in empathy, and emotionally engaging with others suppresses brain areas involved in analytic thought. This presents a challenge for contexts that require both forms of thought. Managers, teachers and doctors all have professional roles in which optimal performance depends both on a capacity for clear analytic thought, and on their ability to emotionally resonate with others. This panel brings together three experts in the neuroscience of empathy and how to train it. They discuss the challenges involved in fostering a balance between empathy and analysis in professional life, and suggest solutions.
Panel 20: Empathy in Critical Care - Empathy and Healthcare Conference
Keonnis R. Taylor
Jodi Halpern
Barbara Beach
Marilyn Ababio
Edwin Rutsch
This panel with experts in the field of healthcare explored the role of empathy and compassion in providing medical care. The panel included; Jodi Halpern, M.D., Ph.D, Associate Professor of Bioethics and Medical Humanities at the University of California, Berkeley. Barbara Beach, M.D., Co-founder and Medical Director of George Mark Children's House. Keonnis Taylor, Executive Director, and Marilyn Ababio,  Director of the Board, at Comfort Homesak. Edwin Rutsch, Director, Center for Building a Culture of Empathy.
A few of the questions addressed were;
  •  How do those providing objective medical care, especially around the grim subject of one's own death, provide compassionate care without absorbing the emotions surrounding imminent death?
  • Please describe your work and why the principle of empathy is relevant to it?
  •  The theory of Counter-Transference in Psychology postulates that the practitioner's feelings are entangled with the patient's. Does this also happen in the medical field? etc.
     
Panel 21: Philosophy and Empathy
Anthony I. Jack
Joshua Knobe
Philip Robbins
Edwin Rutsch
This panel brings together three leading researchers in the emerging field of experimental philosophy: a field which uses the experimental methods of the cognitive and social sciences to shed light on philosophical problems. This is a free ranging discussion of recent research and work in progress. We discuss how our conception of the minds of others relates to empathy of various types, with a particular focus on empathy in the sense of compassion. The discussion touches on dehumanization, objectification, and how empathy relates to our tendency to see minds as embodied, as able to feel different kinds of emotion, and as possessing autonomy or free will.
     
Panel 22: Empathy and Yoga: Yoga is a tool kit for Empathy
Nixa De Bellis
Michael Hewett
Elena Brower
Edwin Rutsch

Yoga is a tool kit for Empathy. In its methods we cultivate a feeling sense of ourselves and the world. We both take measure of our own person and revel in the multitude of relationships through an awareness practice of deeper than ordinary looking and listening.

The logic of our differences, our similarities and our sameness is not evident without practice, and so we have the yoga technologies for actively engaging ourselves, our families, our communities and our world.

     
Panel 23 - The Role of Empathy in Crime, Policing and Justice
Chad Posick
Joe Brummer
Michael Rocque
Edwin Rutsch
The role of empathy in policing, both empathy for and by the police, is gaining attention from criminal justice researchers and practitioners. While research on the effectiveness and importance of empathy in policing is limited, the existing research indicates that empathy increases perceptions of legitimacy and trust in the police. This panel discusses a range of issues related to the role of empathy in criminal behavior, punishment, and policing with a specific emphasis on training police on how to incorporate empathy into their work.
Sub Conference: Justice
     
Panel 24:  Moving Medical Culture from Detachment to Empathy
Helen Riess
Jodi Halpern
Edwin Rutsch
Edwin Rutsch hosts a discussion with two of the primary leaders in the movement to transform medical culture from detachment to a culture of empathy. Jodi Halpern M.D., Ph.D, is Associate Professor of Bioethics and Medical Humanities at the University of California, Berkeley, in the Joint Medical Program and the School of Pulic Health. Helen Riess M.D., Ph.D is Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School and Director of the Empathy and Relational Science Program at Massachusetts General Hospital. 
     
Panel 25: Libertarian: How might we transform domination cultures & systems into empathic cultures?

Wesley Bertrand
Katie Testa
Tom Garrett
Edwin Rutsch

Through a reflective listening and empathy process, we explored some of the concerns about systems (organizations and institutions with laws, rules, policies, procedures, and norms) that can discourage empathy with self and with others. Domination systems are based on hierarchies of authority and demanded compliance, with punishments administered for noncompliance..... We speculate that if empathy were focused on and practiced in relation to systems of domination, helpful transformations could take place.
     
Panel 26 - What is the Relationship Between Self-Empathy, Empathy, Self-Compassion & Compassion?
Kristin Neff
Christopher Germer
Edwin Rutsch

In this panel discussion, Kristin Neff, Christopher Germer and Edwin Rutsch discuss the question, What is the Relationship Between Self-Empathy, Empathy, Self-Compassion & Compassion?  There is a great deal of confusion about the meanings and definitions of self-empathy, empathy, self-compassion & compassion. We might be talking about the same experience but are using different words, or are talking about different experiences and are using the same words.

 

     
Panel 27 - How Might We Create More Interfaith Empathy?
Sheima Salam Sumer
Abdulmonaim Merkt
Amal Damaj
Adam Ericksen

Edwin Rutsch
The discussion is about how to build more empathy among the different religious groups. Our panelists are Christians and Muslims who are located in Iraq and the USA.
     

Panel 28 - Empathy-Based Parenting Educators On the Role of Empathy in Different Parenting Styles?

Amy Bryant
Robbyn Bennett

Kim Hopkins Betts
Lori Petro

Edwin Rutsch

Our panel of Empathy-Based Parenting Educators discuss, What is the Role of Empathy in Different Parenting Styles?
Some of the styles discussed are; Authoritarian, Authoritative, Indulgent (permissive), Neglectful (uninvolved), Attachment, Nurturant and Empathic Parenting.

     
Panel 29: Philosophers Empathy Circle: For & Against Empathy  
Lori Gruen
Jesse Prinz
Edwin Rutsch
With David Hume looking over his their shoulders, Edwin Rutsch facilitates a new way for philosophers to dialog with each other about their views. Instead of a competitive debate, they try to empathize with each others feelings, needs, points of view and understandings. Edwin facilitates this Philosophers Empathy Circle with Jesse Prinz who is 'against empathy' and Lori Gruen who is 'for empathy'. Check out this fascinating process and discussion. How will it end?
     
Panel 30: How might we build a more empathic society and culture?
Jackie Acho
Minter Dial
Anita Nowak
Edwin Rutsch
This the first of a series of Empathy Circles with empathy activists.  Most participants have written books or head programs on the topic.  This is a way to explore the different facets of empathy together and for people in the field to get to know each other and exchange ideas and insights.  
     
     
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