The short review: the title, The Empathy Diaries: A Memoir (Sherry Turkle New York: Penguin Press, 2021, 357 pp.) reveals that empathy lives, comes forth, in empathy’s breakdowns and failings. Empathy often emerges in clarifying a lack of empathy. This work might have been entitled, less elegantly, “The Lack of Empathy Diaries.” I found the book to be a compellingly written, even a page-turner at times, highly recommended, but, caution, this is not a “soft ball” review.”
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 ›
Empathy is never needed more than when it seems that there is not enough time for it. Register Now: 7TopEmpathyLessonsWebCast: https://chicago.uchicagoalumni.org/article.html?aid=1866 Location: online Cost: complimentary Summary: The same executives who claim to be empathic in the human resources meeting with… Read More ›
When people do not get the empathy to which they feel entitled, they get enraged. De-escalate rage by providing empathy and empathic relatedness.
Time was when it was a bold statement of the obvious that reading a good book expands one’s empathy. It’s summer in the city of Chicago. People are going to the beach, the park, leaving town for the wilderness or… Read More ›
Beam is a would-be “bad girl,” who has written a very good book. In a world of constrained, limited empathy, the empathic person is a non-conformist. Beam is one of those, too, and succeeds in sustaining a nuanced skepticism about the alternating hype and over-valuation of empathy over against those who summarily dismiss it. Most ambivalently, she calls out the corporate infatuation with empathy. I paraphrase the corporate approach: Take a walk in the other person’s shoes in order to sell them another pair.
In case you are unaware of William Miller’s background, he is the innovator behind Motivational Interviewing. Listening well – the practice, not just the title of the book – is at the heart of this approach. In turn, the practice… Read More ›
This book contains some thirty (30) empathy lessons for life. A key empathy lesson that explicitly addresses empathy training: remove the resistance to empathy—obstacles such as cynicism, shame, guilt, aggression, narcissism, devaluing language, and so on—and empathy spontaneously shows up, comes… Read More ›
Here are Empathy Lessons for the New Year ahead. You know what would really interest me? To hear from you (dear reader) what is your empathy lesson? Whether inspired by this list or your own experience over the winter holiday… Read More ›
Most people think that empathy is compassion; and, heavens knows, the world needs more compassion. But empathy and compassion are distinct.
