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 forth, develops, and grows.

Most people are naturally empathic. This is the training in a nutshell. (To order the book click here: Empathy Lessons.) Read on for more details –

The empathy lessons in this book include how—

to perform a readiness assessment and establish a set up for success in cleaning up inauthenticities that block empathy so that empathy can expand and flourish (perhaps the most challenging part of this work);

empathy is not an “on–off” switch but a tuner (dial or dimmer) that expands or contracts in accessing the vicarious experience of the other person;

empathy breaks down in emotional contagion, empathic distress, “compassion fatigue” (in quotes because it is really about compassion, not empathy), burnout, conformity, projection, devaluing language, and, most significantly, how to overcome these break downs of empathy through multi-dimensional empathy;

empathy works as a method of data gathering in relating to the other person, providing a vicarious experience of the other person without being overwhelmed by the experience;

introspection, vicarious experience, listening to one’s own “voice over” and radical acceptance of one’s own experiences are the royal road to empathic receptivity;

empathic understanding overcomes conformity and creates possibilities of shifting out of stuckness into contribution, transformation, and leadership, including possibilities of engaging and attaining satisfying and flourishing relationships;

empathic interpretation is the folk definition of empathy, walking in another’s shoes, adding “top down” empathy to “bottom up,” empathic receptivity;

empathic responsiveness drives out anger and rage, acting as a soothing balm to suffering and emotional upset, deescalating conflict and aggression;

scientific, peer-reviewed, evidence-based research confirms that empathy (and a set of related interventions) reduce inflammation and stress, the five forms of stress, and connecting the dots between empathy, the reduction of inflammation, and stress reduction;

relationships get “weaponized” in bullying and, coming from empathy, how to overcome bullying, reestablishing boundaries: recommendations that promote empathy in students, teachers, administrators, and stop bullying (including cyber bullying);

“corporate empathy” is not a contradiction in terms, “CEO” now means “chief empathy officer,” and empathy is applied as the ultimate “capitalist tool”;

empathy is the “secret sauce” in sexual satisfaction within an authentic relationship, featuring the desire of desire, the “good parts,” and intimate engagements that are sustainable and last.

These empathy lessons put you back in touch with your empathy. Most people have quite a lot of empathy but are out of touch with it. Empathy lessons—not merely the formal title of this book, the actual practices—provide applications to tough cases. The applications give back to you your power in engaging and overcoming life’s social stresses and the need to expand well-being in the face of emotional upset, handling dynamic relationships, meeting business challenges in the corporate jungle and empathy desert, overcoming bullies and bullying, and applying and practicing empathy in sex and romance.

Our work together in this book is fully buzz word compliant including—

what is “mind reading”; how mind reading relates to empathy; the break down in empathy of “mind misreading”; and what is missing in mind reading, needed to bring it to fruition in empathic receptivity;

the ongoing debates about mirror neurons and the neurological basis of empathy (and an understandable explanation of their significance (and limits)); and the deeper truth that all human beings are related whether or not mirror neurons exist;

disorders of empathy such as Asperger’s and autism and (in a different context) the psychopathic person;

who or what is the “Natural Empath” and how this person, seemingly caught between nature and nurture, provides empathy lessons in abundance; and what happens when the Good Samaritan meets the Natural Empath;

social referencing and how we process the feelings of other people (and how that works);

evidence-based everything in which one would no more jump out of an airplane without a parachute or treat a bacterial infection without penicillin than engage with a human being without empathy (positively stated, start with empathy or one is headed for trouble);

and practical applications to tough, recalcitrant cases using literature, film, and story telling to teach empathy—deliver empathy lessons—and overcome the common breakdowns in the practice of empathy.

This work brings you step-by-step from what it takes to be present—fully present—with another human being, through the breakdowns and misfirings of empathic understanding to radical acceptance, which is profoundly different than mere agreement with someone’s opinion.

A bold statement of the obvious: I acknowledge that I am a proponent of empathy. Yet empathy has a dark side, too. Yes, compassion fatigue and burnout; but also Machiavellian and alienated empathy in business—appearing to be empathic while only being interested in closing the sale: walking in the other’s shoes to sell another pair to the other person. How to turn these risks, resistances, and breakdowns to advantage and even breakthroughs in satisfying and successful relationships in one’s personal life, career, business, and parenting, are canvassed in detail.

Every break down in empathy points the way to a potential breakthrough, if one knows how to listen, identify what’s missing, restore it, process, and respond.

In Chapter One, our empathy lessons introduce and clarify the multi-dimensional definition of empathy. The four dimensions of empathic receptivity, empathic understanding, empathic interpretation, and empathic responsiveness are defined, exemplified, clarified. These four aspects of the process of empathy are used throughout this work on empathy and applied to diverse examples, situations, cases, and stories.

In Chapter Two, our work uncovers the misfirings and failures of empathy including: empathy breakdowns in emotional contagion, burnout, empathic distress, “compassion fatigue,” conformity, projection such as egocentrism and narcissism, and devaluing talk that gets “lost in translation” in gossip, shaming, and bullying speech. The secret to expanding empathy is practicing overcoming these breakdowns.

In Chapter Three, the empathy lessons lead the reader from overcoming resistances to empathy to the breakthrough of empathy training and empathy as a method of data gathering that can be taught.

In Chapter Four, the data supporting evidence-based training in empathy is engaged and developed, as the Natural Empath meets the Good Samaritan, resulting in expanded control of the dial to tune empathy up and turn it down when one needs to do so.

In Chapter Five, empathy lessons directly engage the work of expanding the reader’s empathic receptivity in (1) the vicarious experience of the lives of others; (2) empathic understanding of possibilities of satisfaction in relatedness; (3) empathic interpretation in the folk definition of walking in the other person’s shoes to connect with difficult individuals you might not have been able to relate to previously; (4) empathic responsiveness that leaves one in the presence of fulfilling relationships with human beings without anything else added.

In the next four chapters, the multi-dimensional approach to empathy is applied to four challenging cases (each a chapter) including: stress reduction, featuring empathy as a spa treatment for the human soul, evidence-based medicine, and the contribution of empathy to emotional well-being (Chapter Six); what happens to people when relationships get “weaponized,” how empathy puts bullying in its place, including extensive recommendations for students, teachers, administrators on establishing boundaries (Chapter Seven); business in which empathy becomes a “capitalist tool” and ends up being good for business, too (Chapter Eight); sex and love and rock and roll in which “empathy is the new love”—what everyone really wants (Chapter Nine). This wide ranging, round-the-mountain romp through empathy lessons and the related recommendations are collected together in the final chapter on the top tips and techniques for expanding empathy (Chapter Ten).

As this intellectually rigorous but accessible and, I hope, intermittently humorous story of empathy unfolds, readers get empathy lessons on every page, pointing the way to success in expanding empathy in relationships, stress reduction, contribution to community, career, and romance. From time-to-time, I will pause for breath and remind the reader, like repeating a mantra, in order to drive the lesson down into the neurons through repetition: Empathy is oxygen for the soul. If you are short of breath due to life stress, get this book and expand your empathy through empathy lessons and applications. When all is said and done—when all the distinctions are deployed, arguments made, guidance provided, and recommendations completed—empathy means being in the presence of another human being.

A preface is the proper place for a personal reflection. Friends and colleagues have said to me, “Lou, nice work with the those other academic books on empathy you already published—great job!—but—how shall we put it delicately?—they are a tad too—too academic. What we really need now is something more readable, more accessible.”

Voila! This book aspires to address the everyday, educated reader, rather than the scholar or academic. I hasten to add that does not mean that I am sloppy about distinctions or intellectually lazy. However, I caution my academic friends, who are also inspired to engage with empathy, that, instead of using “journal speak,” I write casually and inspirationally. I use sentence fragments: “Likewise, with empathy.” I speak in the first person, which I have found effective in inducing empathy in the reader. I say “her or his.” Sometimes I even slip into using “they,” even though the subject is singular. So please do not say that I do not take risks. I try to be funny, but do not try too hard. I engage the reader personally.

What then is my guidance to you, dear reader? The reader can expect me (the author) to empower you to expand your empathy. I provide the distinctions needed to inquire into your own empathy in such a way that it develops, unfolds, grows, and expands. A simple yet powerful definition of empathy is developed and is then applied to opening up and resolving tough cases. This approach to empathy enables you to get in touch with your own empathic abilities through practicing a series of simple empathy lessons that, in turn, are engaging, confronting, humorous, and inspiring.

In the world of advice to the reader, the first five chapters are a sustained look at the definition, meaning, and explanation of how empathy works (and sometimes doesn’t work), delivering empathy lessons designed to make empathy present for the reader in the page-by-page progress of the work; the next four chapters are applications of empathy to four “tough cases”; and the final chapter is a summary in one place of tips and techniques encountered throughout the book with a modest amount of further analysis and explanation. This book was written as a coherent, integrated whole. Though modularly designed, the chapters were never separate papers, now cobbled together as an anthology. Nothing wrong with collections or anthologies as such; but this is not one of those.

The book’s approach to empathy gathers examples from life experience, story telling, literature, film, the author’s private empathy lessons, and his own biography and empathy consulting practice, to shift out of stuckness into expanded empathy. I provide examples of practices that have worked for me (and others) in expanding empathy in the real world. The anecdotes and vignettes are used with permission or are composites of experiences with identities changed to preserve anonymity. I am straight with you about practices that I believe work and practices that don’t work; what are the pitfalls and breakdowns; and how to avoid them or if they are unavoidable, how to reduce and manage them.

In exchange, I expect the reader, well, to read. I also ask the reader to examine and test her or his own feelings and experiences in the light of what is presented. Expect to be challenged. Expect to have your comfort zone stretched in a firm yet empathic way. The narrative loops back on itself so that distinctions relevant to empathy are introduced and sustained, while the context for applying, practicing, and mastering the distinctions is deepened and broadened. The narrative then cycles back at a higher level of engagement, forming an upward spiral (rather than a circle) so that the connections between aspects of empathy are strengthened. Ultimately, I strive to make empathy present, and, bring it forth in a conversation with the reader. The extent to which I succeed in actually doing so, the reader must judge. Okay, I’ve read enough. I want to order the book (click here to order Empathy Lessons).Hold on tight—the journey is about to begin.

Please note that Lou Agosta is available for individual or group empathy lessons, training, and conversation by appointment. Contact Lou at LouAgosta@gmail.com and mention this blog post.

(c) Lou Agosta, PhD and the Chicago Empathy Project