Theme of Zoom Meeting: Empathy
© 2020 by Richard E. Gordon Duplication prohibited without author’s
approval.
Last updated: 4/25/22
Appetizer a: I wonder: When I go to a card shop, I can always find sympathy cards. But where are the empathy cards?
******
Appetizer b: Cooper was a shrewd insurance salesman. He would always try to get
a potential client to reveal something special about a hardship she had
suffered. Marcia told him that she had recently gone through a painful divorce.
Cooper was fast to say that he, too, had been sent into a downward spin of
depression from his own divorce twenty years ago. He showed such understanding
toward Marcia. He seemed to understand her pain. Then he made his sales pitch,
and Marcia took the empathy bait. She bought the policy. Cooper rushed home
with a victorious smile to brag to the only wife he ever had.
Questions:
1. How does someone show empathy?
2. If you were enduring a hardship, would you rather receive sympathy or empathy? Why?
3. Both sympathy and empathy include path. What do you think the root path means?
4. Must a good therapist have empathy when dealing with her/his patients?
5. Are women or men generally more capable of showing empathy?
6. Why might some people be incapable of showing empathy?
7. What nourishes empathy in a person’s development? How about your genes? Is empathy genetic?
8. How can parents help cultivate empathy in their children?
9. How can expressions of empathy be deceitful?
10.Without identifying the person, tell us about someone whose empathy was very helpful to you or to someone else you knew.
11.How might facing a hardship make you more helpful to someone else?
12.Would a written message reflecting empathy be more helpful to you than a phone call?
13.How can you express empathy without saying or writing a word?
14.What opportunities to show empathy do you have in your church, synagogue, mosque – or even in a social club.
15.Why are some people reluctant to show empathy?
Quotations:
1. “Empathy is seeing with the eyes of another, listening with the ears of another and feeling with the heart of another.” – Alfred Adler
2. “I believe empathy is the most essential quality of civilization.” – Roger Ebert
3. “The great gift of human beings is that we have the power of empathy, we can all sense a mysterious connection to each other.” – Meryl Streep
4. “Learning to stand in somebody else’s shoes, to see through their eyes, that’s how peace begins. And it’s up to you to make that happen. Empathy is a quality of character that can change the world.” – Barack Obama
5. “Leadership is about empathy.”– Oprah Winfrey
“Sometimes all a person wants is an empathetic ear;
all he or she needs is to talk it out. Just offering a listening ear and an
understanding heart for his or her suffering can be a big comfort.”
―
“Some people think only intellect counts: knowing how to solve
problems, knowing how to get by, knowing how to identify an advantage and seize
it. But the functions of intellect are insufficient without courage, love,
friendship, compassion, and empathy.”
―
8.
“It [reading fiction] allows us to inhabit the
consciousness of another which is a precursor to empathy, and empathy is, for
me, one of the marks of a decent human being.”
―
“Empathy isn’t just
listening;
it’s asking the questions whose answers need to be listened to. Empathy
requires inquiry as much as imagination. Empathy requires knowing you know
nothing. Empathy means acknowledging a horizon of context that extends
perpetually beyond what you can see.”
―
10.