Culture of Empathy Builder: Marieke Kingma


Marieke Kingma: Increasing Empathy: The Empathy Training Manual Presentation
		My name is Marieke Kingma I am 22 years old, born in Kollum in the Netherlands. Recently I received my bachelor degree of Applied Psychology. For my thesis I’ve been researching how to increase empathy. Based on the findings I developed a Training Manual. The training is based on the insights of Carl Rogers about empathy. Themes that are central in the training are: unconditional positive regard, accurate listening and perspective taking.
I think increasing the ability to empathize with each other is important because it leads to a variety of positive things like accepting each other, a sense of connectedness, creativity and a broader awareness etc. According to some studies empathy also reduces bullying, prejudices and racism. In short, I think empathy is a building block for a better society.