10 Jul 2017

A Healthy Empathy® retreat at 1440 Multiversity!

by | posted in: Empathy | 0

Healthy Empathy® How to Give Without Giving it All Away Karla McLaren, M.Ed and Tino Plank, MSN, RN November 24th to 26th, 2017, Friday evening through Sunday afternoon 1440 Multiversity in Scotts Valley, California $325 plus accommodations (see the 1440 Multiversity site for your options) 8.5 hours of Continuing Education credits are available (see below)   Health and healing professionals who demonstrate empathy provide better care with higher … Read More
2 Feb 2015

Autism, empathy, and the mind-blindness of everyday people

by | posted in: Autism | 17

Hello! I’ve completed graduate school, and I’m now Karla McLaren, M.Ed! My master’s degree is in education and curriculum design with a concentration in linguistic anthropology, and my focus is on autism, empathy, disability rights, and human rights. Over the next few months, I’m going to be posting pieces of my own research and the excellent research I’ve found. For instance, if you’d like to explore … Read More
3 Jul 2014

The difference between deep empathy and niceness

by | posted in: Empathy | 12

When people think of empathy, they tend to see it as a soft skill — as a yielding and pleasing kind of behavior. They think: If you listen to me and agree with me and make me feel good, that’s empathy. If you fix my problems and soothe everything, that’s empathy. Empathy equals niceness. But there’s actually a deeper form of empathy that transcends mere niceness … Read More
30 May 2014

The Magical Healing Powers of Art

by | posted in: Variety | 26

Art is a specific empathic healing practice This month’s newsletter about art has started a lot of conversations; this post expands on the healing power of art (artistically)! Artistic expression is a wonderful and soul expanding thing for anyone, but it has a particular healing quality for anyone who wants to understand and work with empathy, because art helps you express and channel emotions intentionally. Empathy … Read More
23 Jan 2014

The difference between empathy and enmeshment

by | posted in: Empathy | 22

Hello fellow empathic people! Did you know that there’s a distinct difference between healthy empathy and enmeshment? I’ve spent a lifetime exploring how empathy works, how it goes awry, how we can understand it more clearly, and how we can create a ground for self-care and self-empathy within our everyday lives. I’ve also been looking at an idea about empathy that goes something like this: Empathy … Read More
10 Oct 2013

The Six Essential Aspects of Empathy, Part 1: Emotion Contagion

by | posted in: Empathy | 9

A new approach to empathy! In my book and audio learning program, The Art of Empathy: A Complete Guide to Life’s Most Essential Skill, I focus on my Six Essential Aspects of Empathy model, starting with the first, which has a strange name: Emotion Contagion. Before empathy can take place, you need to sense that an emotion is occurring – or that an emotion is expected … Read More
16 Jan 2013

How accurate is your empathy?

by | posted in: Empathic Skills | 0

How good are your Emotion-Recognition skills? Last week, we looked at a vital part of the first aspect of empathy (Emotion Contagion), which is your capacity to feel your way into the emotions of others. And with the support of the concept of Einfühlung, we also opened up our idea of empathy to include your capacity to feel into and alongside nonhuman actors like animals and … Read More
10 Jan 2013

Einfühlung and Empathy

by | posted in: Empathy | 16

Hello again! Previously, we looked at the first of my six aspects of empathy, Emotion Contagion. We also talked about the importance of art for people whose Emotion Contagion skills are very strong (hyperempaths), and also for people whose skills are currently less developed. The good news is that the six essential aspects of empathy are changeable, malleable, and manageable throughout your life span; therefore, you can … Read More
4 Jan 2013

Welcome to The Year of Empathy!

by | posted in: Empathy | 30

Hello and Happy New Year! Last month, I turned in the manuscript for my new book The Art of Empathy, and it will be published in October! I’ll be posting weekly about empathy this year — about my work, about the empathy research being done in over half-a-dozen different academic disciplines, and about ways that you can work with each of the six essential aspects of … Read More
27 Dec 2012

Empathy and autism

by | posted in: Autism | 6

Empaths, we’ve got a situation. After these most recent mass murders, people are focusing their fears onto mentally ill people and autistic people. This is not only cruel, but it’s counterproductive, since autistic people and people who are mentally ill are far more likely to be victims of crime than to commit crimes. Since the Sandy Hook murders occurred, I’ve been very quiet, reading academic books … Read More

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