Articles on Empathy

Helping you reconnect when your relationship is floundering

With the stress of everyday life, it's not unusual for a couple to lose their emotional connection. Our relationship therapists cite a number of reasons why a couple loses connection and ends up hardy talking to each other. Whether it's a new baby, a stressful job, financial woes or difficult life events, the emotional connection in a relationship can break down when the communication channels are down. Disconnection can lead to a relationship breakdown unless both parties make changes.

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Date Posted: April 4, 2013

Categories: Couple Counseling, Empathy, Marital Counseling, Men's Issues, Relationships & Marriage, Women's Issues

Can Empathy be Learned? The neural substrate of caring

I remember a science fiction show from television that featured a character which was said to have been an empath. For all I knew, the writers might have invented the word, but I thought it was an intriguing concept. The idea was that the empath, upon encountering someone who had suffered great physical injury, was able to assume their wounds, freeing the victim of pain and agony. Then, after several moments of regenerative effort the empath was able to heal their damaged body of its wounds.

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Date Posted: September 5, 2012

Categories: Empathy

Do You Cry in Public or in Private?

“If you've never eaten while crying you don’t know what life tastes like.”

I came across this saying by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe the other day and thought that it would be a nice starting point to talk about the subject of crying. It’s not that Goethe cried a lot; however, during the 18th and 19th centuries he wrote in the genre of theology, literature and drama, we can assume that he was familiar with the ranges of human emotion. Goethe, like so many others, was telling us that it is useful and even necessary to cry. But, is it better to cry in private or public? A new study by the Faculty of Health Sciences, Ehime Prefectural University of Health Sciences in Japan examines the effects of adults crying in public settings and the effect it has on the crier and the witnesses.

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Date Posted: July 13, 2012

Categories: Empathy, Grief, Loss, Bereavement

Highlights from the Happiness and Its Causes conference - 16th June : Jane Goodall

The highlight of the day for me was the presentation by Dr. Jane Goodall one of the leading primatologists in the world.  Jane Goodall told us that without a doubt the chimpanzees she has observed and worked with experience emotions such as happiness, sadness, anger and rage.  She also told of the happiest experience in her work with them. Once she was following an old chimp through the dense jungle.  The chimp got ahead of her and when she caught up with him she was out of breath and a bit fearful and so offered the chimp some food.  The old chimp brushed the food aside but let his fingers gently grasp the hand of the Jane Goodall; such grasping is how chimps re-assure each other and the old chimp was reassuring Jane that he was her friend and she was safe.  This story shows that chimps not only have emotions but can empathize! 

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Date Posted: June 18, 2011

Categories: Empathy