Dr.
Ruth Richards is Professor of Psychology at Saybrook University in
San Francisco, Lecturer, Dept. of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical
School, on the AHIMSA Advisory Board
Ahimsaberkeley.org, and is also a longtime
Buddhist practitioner and enthusiast for interfaith understanding.
AGE OF EMPATHY? New Views
of Health, Human Nature, and Relational Creativity - May 17, 2011
A free public offering sponsored by AHIMSA and the Center for
Building a Culture of Empathy. Empathy is an essential yet often unsung
human quality - creative, connecting, powerful. We consider its vital
role for humans individually and together, for our health, our progress,
our development. And perhaps even for our species survival.
Then a meditation led by Abbe Blum,
Ph.D., Saybrook University and Swarthmore College. (Description
on Facebook Event Page)
1) DEFINITION
More than simply ”standing in someone’s shoes,” a complex
cognitive-affective capacity, with different variants, found across time
and space and across diverse species, essential to evolution and
cultural progress.
2) DEVALUED?
Yes—a huge problem in itself for human beings, at times related to
cultural biases and stereotypes
3) AND RELATIONAL CREATIVITY
FOCUS ON PROCESS NOT PRODUCT. By enhancing our creativity AS A WAY
OF LIFE, we can become more aware, flexible, courageous, able to resist
conformity, and find new paths. We can value our fullest human potential
including EMPATHY. Together, our personal connecting in the moment can
show relational creativity, enhancing intimacy, mutual growth and
change, and personal (and social) development.
4) AGE OF EMPATHY?
Needed now like never before, on a shrinking globe. A sign of humans
finding a higher potential. A new form of consciousness?
5) MORE CONNECTED THAN WE KNOW?
Profoundly! — offering joy, support, meaning, and a path to change
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