Empathy has been given a bad rap in hermeneutic circles by being degraded to a psychological mechanism whereas empathy is rather a way of being in relatedness to individuals and community. Key term: being in relatedness. (For those who may… Read More ›
Freud is explicit about his commitment to empathy. He writes and publishes the following: It is certainly possible to forfeit this first success [in therapy] if one takes up any standpoint other than one of empathy such as moralizing (“Further… Read More ›
Biology is not destiny. As Simone de Beauvoir noted in The Second Sex, woman is not a mere womb. Though de Beauvoir did not explicitly say so, I believe de Beauvoir [and many feminists] would agree: man is not mere… Read More ›
Empathy: A Lazy Person’s Guide is a light-hearted look at a significant and engaging matter: how to expand empathy in the individual and the community – and do so without working too hard. The Guide includes twenty eight illustrations by… Read More ›
This is the story, the narrative, of a survivor, Marsha Linehan, an innovator in the treatment of borderline personality disorder (BPD) using a method she and her team invented called Dialectical Behavioral Treatment (DBT). Linehan has written a memoir, not… Read More ›
Catching up on my reading while “sheltering at home” in Chicago, Susan Sontag’s (1933 – 2004) book length essay, “Illness as Metaphor” (1977) is especially timely in view of the psychological dynamics around the Covid-19 pandemic. The message of “Illness… Read More ›
If ever there was a time for online (tele/cyber) talk therapy, this is it. In case you were trekking through Tibet or living in a cave with Buddhist monks, allow me to clarify why. Key term: social distancing. It is… Read More ›
George Steiner passed away in the fullness of time at his home in Cambridge, England, at the age of 90. This blog post acknowledges and honors him for his contribution, largely previously unnoted, to the understanding and practice of empathy…. Read More ›
Business leaders lose contact with what clients and consumers are experiencing. Leaders get entangled in solving legal issues, reacting to the competition, or implementing the technologies required to sustain operations, and lose touch with the empathic core of business. Yet empathy is never needed more than when it seems there is no time for it.
Elizabeth Wurtzel (1967–2020) died at the age of 52 on January 7th in New York City of metastatic breast cancer. Wurtzel became a notorious “bad girl,” with a wicked sense of black humor, sparing few, least of all herself, and… Read More ›
