Building a Culture of Empathy

[DapperButch]

Originally Posted by nycfembbw

Did you have anyone with whom you had meaningful contact while young (a teacher, a neighbor, a relative, a sitter, etc.) that may have fostered empathy in you? I have read that can be a saving grace for kids in homes where empathy is not there to be learned. My own mom was abused and dissociative/fractured, while my dad was abusive. I did have a sitter who made a huge difference to me. Now she is my mom's best friend (After my dad left my mom, unfortunately this was when I had already grown up, my mom became so much more stabilized.).

Originally Posted by *Anya*

I believe it had to have been my maternal grandmother. Until I was 10 I did spend a lot of time with her on the weekends. She was loving and caring to me.

My mon would have been different had my grandmother raised her but she was thrown out of her orthodox Jewish family for getting pregnant with my mom out-of-wedlock as they called it and her father was a rabbi. She boarded my mom with a very strict, abusive family and my mom was the scapegoat of the other foster kids.

So yes, I guess I learned empathy from my grandmother.

Thanks Nannie. She died at age 95. I still miss her.

Yes, nycfembbw. It is truly amazing how that happens. A child having just one person in their lives, even for a short period of time (like one school year), who is emotionally attentive and lets the child know that they matter can "undo" so much "bad stuff" (for lack of a better word).

I'm glad you had that someone like that in your life, Anya.

[Toughy]

Interesting link about empathy vs sympathy

http://www.diffen.com/difference/Empathy_vs_Sympathy

I wonder if different chemicals are produced.........I could not find the answer because the search kept going to the sympathetic nervous system.....


<snip> Sympathy essentially implies a feeling of recognition of another's suffering while empathy is actually sharing another's suffering, if only briefly. Empathy is often characterized as the ability to "put oneself into another's shoes". So empathy is a deeper emotional experience.

Empathy develops into an unspoken understanding and mutual decision making that is unquestioned, and forms the basis of tribal community. Sympathy may be positive or negative, in the sense that it attracts a perceived quality to a perceived self identity, or it gives love and assistance to the unfortunate and needy.

<snip>
Compassion can form a base for both empathy and sympathy, and each may be seen as aspects of wisdom, or the means through which wisdom is synthesized. Sympathy also involves caring, but a compassionate sense of assistance and protection for those who are poor and less fortunate. Empathy is expressed when trying to feel someone else’s feeling who generally is known to you.
<snip>

[mariamma]

I heard this program this morning and was moved by their many points. Not really an episode about empathy but more about how lack of insight eventually effects all people.

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/play_full.php?play=474

[mariamma]

A vimeo clip on empathy, neurons and the dramatic arc. Insightful
http://vimeo.com/50579996