A Rumor of Empathy with Lou Agosta

Empathy has been criticized as not "evidence-based" or lacking in scientific rigor. This is incorrect. Extensive scientific and peer-reviewed research supports the position that empathy is good for you health and well-being. This podcast covers the research in a brainy but breezy way. The podcast  discusses the relevance and the cytokine theory of depression, how this relates to inflammation and inflammation-reducing practices. It also takes a light-hearted and personal look at how the practice of empathy as well as a set of related practices such as mindfulness (meditation), yoga, and Tai Chi contribution to stress reduction (and what the heck is "stress" anyway). 

Empathy is good for your health and well-being: Empathy is on a short list of stress reduction practices including meditation (mindfulness), Tai Chi, and Yoga. Receiving empathy in the form of a gracious and generous listening is like getting a spa treatment for the soul. 

This episode is also available as a blog post: http://louagosta.com/2021/04/18/empathy-is-good-for-your-health-and-well-being-the-evidence/

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

This podcast is an excerpt from a live, in person presentation entitled The Secret Underground History of Empathy delivered on July 14, 2016 (Bastille Day) at the University of Chicago Graham School of Continuing Education by Lou Agosta. It contains the four-fold analysis and definition of empathy as receptivity, understanding, interpretation, and responsiveness. It contains remarks on Paul Ekman's application of micro-expressions in relation to empathy and a Q&A segment. For those interested in expanding their empathy, not to be missed!

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

The idea is that what people really want more than anything else is to be gotten for who they are – i.e., people want empathy. You know how in the world of high fashion grey is the new black? Well, empathy is the new love.

My proposal is that love contains an empathic core in its stimulating and exciting aspects and that which is the “love sickness” part is due, well, to the struggle to unite affection and desire. In particular, that which is the “love sickness” is due to a breakdown in empathy.

The goal in love is to erase, at least temporarily, the boundary between the self and other. Merger of both mind and body with the other mind and body is the result. In contrast to love, empathy navigates or transgresses the boundary between self and other such that the integrity of the self and other are maintained. One has a vicarious experience of the other—but the difference and integrity of the self and other are maintained. So love emerges as a breakdown in empathy—from the perspective of too much or too little engagement with the other. It is love versus empathy. Yet in love, empathy,

This episode is a selection plus bonus material available as a blog post: http://louagosta.com/2021/02/13/empathy-is-the-new-love/

Art work credit: The Ecstacy of Saint Teresa: Sculpture in marble by Gian Lorenzo Bernini 

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

This is a live talk / presentation at the Illinois School of Professional Psychology at Argosy University on May 6, 2013 by Lou Agosta discussing his book Empathy in the Context of Philosophy, including an approach to empathy based on Martin Heidegger's challenge of producing "a special hermeneutic of empathy."

The talk takes the listener through Heidegger's design distinctions for human existence [Dasein] and these distinction apply to empathy and generate a Heideggerian definition of empathy including: affectivity, understanding, interpretation, and talk (speech) - as authentic forms of human relatedness. Lou tells a story about empathy based on a famous folk tale and concludes that empathy is the foundation of our humanity. Those interested in empathy and the philosophy of Martin Heidegger will want to make it a priority to listen to this one. 

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

You do not need a philosopher to tell you what empathy is. What then do you need? How about a folktale, a narrative, a fairy tale?

Rather than start with a definition of empathy, my proposal is to start by telling a couple of stories, in which empathy (and its breakdown) plays a crucial role. 

Both stories are anonymous folktales from the collection edited by the Brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. The first story (Dr Know-it-all) features top down, cognitive empathy; the second story (The Youth Who Went For to Learn Fear) features bottom up, affective empathy. 

Along the way, the listener encounters spirited hijinks, the neurology of [not] experiencing fear, empathy training, rich empathy lessons, and how empathy gives us our humanity. Not to be missed!

[View the original post: https://louagosta.com/2021/04/10/the-case-of-dr-know-it-all-empathy-gives-us-our-humanity/(opens in a new tab)]

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

Three books on empathy that you will want to check out - after getting the short version here. I had some fun with this one - and, you, the listener, will too, in addition to expanding your empathy. This podcast contains additional bonus material not in the original blog post about how I came to write a book length review of The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Empathy, one of three books reviewed here along with William Miller's Listening Well: The Art of Empathic Understanding and Cris Beam's I Feel You: The Surprising Power of Extreme Empathy. The complete review of the Handbook is itself a book length work (A Critical Review of a Philosophy of Empathy by Lou Agosta), separately published.

This concise version of this episode is also available as a blog post: http://louagosta.com/2019/04/28/three-books-on-empathy-reviewed-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/. 

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