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

 

Learning and Teaching Empathy

 

Our Challenge.
How might we develop  an online empathy training and curriculum wiki?

What is an empathic way of being?

 

Teaching Empathy Magazine

 

Building, deepening and fostering Empathy - become aware of, articulate and express feelings.

  • become aware of feelings.

  • name the feelings.

  • have a list of feeling words.

  • notice, describe and express the felt experience in your body.

Express the feelings in a physical way and do mirroring of them.

need a game for children to act out feelings.

 

Blocks to empathy

 

Empathy Training

 

Having an understanding and model for how our biology works.

 

What are the different models of human nature and how do they effect growth in empathic way of being?

 

We can empathize with all kinds of feelings

empathy Wheel

 

Practices

  • Mutual empathic listening

  • Hearing voices - could they be trained to empathize with each other? 

    • inner compassion versus criticism dialog.

  • breathing exercise - breath for calmness

  • therapy - have a therapist that listens and supports you

  • visualize an ideal compassionate person - imagine actualizing it and acting it out.

  • Stress - reduction

  • Remembering intention. having an object the holds the caring memory to be reminded of it.

 


 

Overview of Teaching empathy

  • Setting the Intention - Nurturing an Empathy Way of Being

    • Why embrace an Empathic Way of Being?

    • (what do people say?)

    • Benefits of Empathy

  • We Are Already in Empathic Relationship

    • Mirror neurons Marc Iacoboni

    • Entangles Empathy

  • You Can Strengthen the Empathy Muscles.

    • references

  • Believe You Can Strengthen the Empathy Muscles.

    • thinking you can helps

    • thinking you can hinders

  • The Brain Can Change and Grow

    • create new neural pathways

    • practice empathic pathways

  • Being aware of the components of empathy

  • Empathic Listening

    • reflection

    • Feelings

    • needs

  • Vicarious Learning

    • Reading Literature

      • depends on the quality of the material

    • Watching Movies

  • Somatic - getting in touch with felt experiences

  • Travel

  • Role playing

    • having done the experience yourself - dancers heightens experience

  • Stress and Fear Reduction

    • breath work

  • Modeling

  • Service Leaning

  • Study of Literature and the Arts

  • Storytelling Approaches

  • Go back and rewire old pathways

  • Methods

    • Empathic Listening - Direct reflective listening based on the work of Carl Rogers

    • Empathic Design -

    • Nonviolent Communications - Observations, Feels, Needs Requests model based on the work of Marshall Rosenberg a student of Carl Rogers

    • Compassionate Listening Project - Listening,

    • Focusing - empathic listening to people focusing on their moment to moment felt sense, based on the work of Gene Gendlin a student of Carl Rogers

    • Psychodrama -

    • Meditation -

 

Empathy Based Processes

  • Empathic Listening

  • Therapies

    • Gestalt - Role Playing

    • Focusing

    • Person centered approach

  • Empathy Circles

    • various versions of empathy circles

    • NVC type

  • Conflict Restoration

    • Restorative Empathy Circles

    • Restorative Justice Processes

    • Mediation Processes

  • Talking Circles

  • Nonviolent Communication

  • Dynamic Facilitation

  • Human-centered design (Empathic Design)

  • Compassionate Listening Project

  • Theory U

  • Wisdom Council

  • NCDD - Resource Guide on Public Engagement

  • Social Presencing Theater

  • Improv

  • Art of Hosting

 

Intention (motivation)

Why do we want to learn empathy?
Why do we even want to raise the level of empathy?
Takes us back to the benefits of empathy in that it feels Damn good, etc.
 

Having a social agreement that empathy is a shared value.

 

Believing that one can become more empathic.
The Plastic Brain.
A study at Stanford shows people who believe they can improve their empathy can versus people who don't believe they can improve it.

 

It's a natural state
Understanding we are empathizing all time with mirror neurons.

 

Being aware of the components of empathy
 What parts of the empathic process do we want to teach?
Layout the individual components of empathy and then show ways to strengthen each of the parts.

  • Self-Empathy

  • Mirrored Empathy

  • Imaginative Empathy

  • Empathic Creativity

Addressing Specific Parts of Empathy

  • Self-Empathy

    • sensory awareness of internal visceral feelings

    • building vocabulary for feelings and needs

    • building resilience

    • stress reduction

    • being heard and seen by others.

      • empathic listening

  • Mirrored Empathy

    • Being aware of mirror neurons and how they work.

    • Dialog

    • Listening skills

    • Contributing to others - service learning

    • Empathy Circles - empathic listening

  • Imaginative Empathy (role playing)

    • Role and Perspective Taking

    • Acting

    • psychodrama

  • Empathic Creativity and Action

    • Learning and practicing Human-Centered Design

 

Stress and Fear Reduction
We generally have the capacity for empathy. But blocks get in the way.. If we can remove the blocks, it can open up our empathy.

  • exercise

  • yoga

  • mediation

  • walks

  • etc.
     

Letting go of Judgments
 

Empathic Listening
 many versions of this.
 

Role Playing - Imaginative Empathy
Many versions of role taking and perspective taking. Can just imagine it or go into even deeper role taking by adding physical  props.  

Types of role playing.  Imaginative empathy.

  • Imagine your are the person, object, etc.

    • Einstein be the light beam

  • Imagine yourself in the future

  • Imagine you are a feeling

    • Alice - we are her creativity and judgment

  • Imagine and have support material

    • designer who dresses as old person

  • Authors-journalists that take on a deeper role.

    • journalists dyes skin black to see with it's like to be black

  • Actors

Techniques

  • Drama

  • body storming - (d.school)

  • embodied dramatic personas

  • realistic scenarios

  • forum theatre

  • participatory design

 

Modeling

Literature and the Arts:

Service Leaning

Join or Build an Empathic Community

Storytelling Approaches - share your story and students get to know each other and this overcomes the alienation.

  • Story of self

  • if you really knew me

  • if you really knew me in large group setting

 

Categories for Leaning and 'Teaching' Empathy

  • Stress, anxiety, fear reduction

    •  

  • Dialogic

    • dialoging with others

    • Empathic Listening

    • a wide var

  • Role playing

  • Acing Improv - yes and

  • Ethnographic interviewing tools

  •  

Sort

Learn all you can about empathy

  • theory

  • history

  • philosophy

  • science


To empathize with people around the world,  study their culture. Learn about their culture, etc
Empathy Training

  • Empathy Circles

  • encounter groups

  • role-plays

  • study groups

  • experiential exercises art