The acclaimed program for fostering empathy and emotional literacy in children—with the goal of creating a more civil society, one child at a time Roots of Empathy—an evidence-based program developed in 1996 by longtime educator and social entrepreneur Mary Gordon—has already reached more than a million children in 14 countries, including Canada, the US, Japan, Australia, and the UK. Now, as The New York Times reports that “empathy lessons are spreading everywhere amid concerns over the pressure on students from high-stakes tests and a race to college that starts in kindergarten,” Mary Gordon explains the value of and how best to nurture empathy and social and emotional literacy in all children—and thereby reduce aggression, antisocial behavior, and bullying.
Roots of Empathy—an evidence-based program developed in 1996 by longtime educator and social entrepreneur Mary Gordon—has already reached more than a million children in 14 countries, including Canada, the US, Japan, Australia, and the UK. Now, as The New York Times reports that “empathy lessons are spreading everywhere amid concerns over the pressure on students from high-stakes tests and a race to college that starts in kindergarten,” Mary Gordon explains the value of and how best to nurture empathy and social and emotional literacy in all children—and thereby reduce aggression, antisocial behavior, and bullying.
Roots of Empathy — an evidence-based program developed in 1996 by longtime educator and social entrepreneur Mary Gordon — has already reached more than 270,000 children in Canada, the U.S., Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and elsewhere. Now, as The New York Times reports that "empathy lessons are spreading everywhere amid concerns over the pressure on students from high-stakes tests and a race to college that starts in kindergarten", Mary Gordon explains the value of and how best to nurture empathy and social and emotional literacy in all children — and thereby reduce aggression, antisocial behavior, and bullying.
Renowned political scientist Terri Givens calls for ‘radical empathy’ in bridging racial divides to understand the origins of our biases, including internalized oppression. Deftly weaving together her own experiences with the political, she offers practical steps to call out racism and bring about radical social change.
The groundbreaking exploration of the power of empathy by renowned child-psychiatrist Bruce D. Perry, co-author, with Oprah Winfrey, of What Happened to You? Born for Love reveals how and why the brain learns to bond with others—and is a stirring call to protect our children from new threats to their capacity to love. “Empathy, and the ties that bind people into relationships, are key elements of happiness. Born for Love is truly fascinating.” — Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project From birth, when babies' fingers instinctively cling to those of adults, their bodies and brains seek an intimate connection, a bond made possible by empathy—the ability to love and to share the feelings of others. In this provocative book, psychiatrist Bruce D. Perry and award-winning science journalist Maia Szalavitz interweave research and stories from Perry's practice with cutting-edge scientific studies and historical examples to explain how empathy develops, why it is essential for our development into healthy adults, and how to raise kids with empathy while navigating threats from technological change and other forces in the modern world. Perry and Szalavitz show that compassion underlies the qualities that make society work—trust, altruism, collaboration, love, charity—and how difficulties related to empathy are key factors in social problems such as war, crime, racism, and mental illness. Even physical health, from infectious diseases to heart attacks, is deeply affected by our human connections to one another. As Born for Love reveals, recent changes in technology, child-rearing practices, education, and lifestyles are starting to rob children of necessary human contact and deep relationships—the essential foundation for empathy and a caring, healthy society. Sounding an important warning bell, Born for Love offers practical ideas for combating the negative influences of modern life and fostering positive social change to benefit us all.
A surprising, sweeping, and deeply researched history of empathy—from late-nineteenth-century German aesthetics to mirror neurons†‹ Empathy: A History tells the fascinating and largely unknown story of the first appearance of “empathy” in 1908 and tracks its shifting meanings over the following century. Despite empathy’s ubiquity today, few realize that it began as a translation of Einfühlung or “in-feeling” in German psychological aesthetics that described how spectators projected their own feelings and movements into objects of art and nature. Remarkably, this early conception of empathy transformed into its opposite over the ensuing decades. Social scientists and clinical psychologists refashioned empathy to require the deliberate putting aside of one’s feelings to more accurately understand another’s. By the end of World War II, interpersonal empathy entered the mainstream, appearing in advice columns, popular radio and TV, and later in public forums on civil rights. Even as neuroscientists continue to map the brain correlates of empathy, its many dimensions still elude strict scientific description. This meticulously researched book uncovers empathy’s historical layers, offering a rich portrait of the tension between the reach of one’s own imagination and the realities of others’ experiences.
Recent work on empathy theory, research, and applications, by scholars from disciplines ranging from neuroscience to psychoanalysis. There are many reasons for scholars to investigate empathy. Empathy plays a crucial role in human social interaction at all stages of life; it is thought to help motivate positive social behavior, inhibit aggression, and provide the affective and motivational bases for moral development; it is a necessary component of psychotherapy and patient-physician interactions. This volume covers a wide range of topics in empathy theory, research, and applications, helping to integrate perspectives as varied as anthropology and neuroscience. The contributors discuss the evolution of empathy within the mammalian brain and the development of empathy in infants and children; the relationships among empathy, social behavior, compassion, and altruism; the neural underpinnings of empathy; cognitive versus emotional empathy in clinical practice; and the cost of empathy. Taken together, the contributions significantly broaden the interdisciplinary scope of empathy studies, reporting on current knowledge of the evolutionary, social, developmental, cognitive, and neurobiological aspects of empathy and linking this capacity to human communication, including in clinical practice and medical education.
The Neuroscience of Empathy, Compassion, and Self-Compassion provides contemporary perspectives on the three related domains of empathy, compassion and self-compassion (ECS). It informs current research, stimulates further research endeavors, and encourages continued and creative philosophical and scientific inquiry into the critical societal constructs of ECS. Examining the growing number of electrocortical (EEG Power Spectral, Coherence, Evoked Potential, etc.) studies and the sizeable body of exciting neuroendocrine research (e.g., oxytocin, dopamine, etc.) that have accumulated over decades, this reference is a unique and comprehensive approach to empathy, compassion and self-compassion. - Provides perspectives on empathy, compassion and self-compassion (ECS), including discussions of cruelty, torture, killings, homicides, suicides, terrorism and other examples of empathy/compassion erosion - Addresses autonomic nervous system (vagal) reflections of ECS - Discusses recent findings and understanding of ECS from mirror neuron research - Covers neuroendocrine manifestations of ECS and self-compassion and the neuroendocrine enhancement - Examines the neuroscience research on the enhancement of ECS - Includes directed-meditations (mindfulness, mantra, Metta, etc.) and their effects on ECS and the brain
Deals with and illustrates the altruistic best and atrocious worst of human nature, and how ordinary people may come to commit torture and mass murders, such as the Auschwitz doctors and the sole terrorist attacking Norway on July 22, 2011.
Discover the Six Habits of Highly Empathic People A popular speaker and co-founder of The School of Life, Roman Krznaric has traveled the world researching and lecturing on the subject of empathy. In this lively and engaging book, he argues that our brains are wired for social connection. Empathy, not apathy or self-centeredness, is at the heart of who we are. By looking outward and attempting to identify with the experiences of others, Krznaric argues, we can become not only a more equal society, but also a happier and more creative one. Through encounters with groundbreaking actors, activists, designers, nurses, bankers and neuroscientists, Krznaric defines a new breed of adventurer. He presents the six life-enhancing habits of highly empathic people, whose skills enable them to connect with others in extraordinary ways – making themselves, and the world, more truly fulfilled.
