2025-05-09 - Defining Empathy

    9:06PM May 9, 2025

    Speakers:

    Edwin Rutsch

    Jodie Jenson

    Keywords:

    Empathy summit

    empathy circle

    cognitive empathy

    affective empathy

    holistic empathy

    emotional contagion

    imaginative empathy

    empathy models

    empathy conference

    empathy definition

    empathy facilitation

    empathy training

    empathy research

    empathy development

    empathy in conflict.

    Um, yeah, we're doing, you know, all of our empathy movement building projects. So that's all just had a meeting, you know, this morning, we talked about the empathy summit and kind of all the projects people are working on. So got a lot of different balls in the air. There is that stop the conference that I was mentioning, that on

    the 24th I want to say 24th

    Yeah, and it was the, if you wanting to attend, that I had initially I was going to attend in person, they had a registration fee. And then, since we're not attending there, that the registration for just the online is cheaper, and they saw we can refund your money. I said, No, I can just maybe invite some people. And so if you want to come, it would be free to Okay,

    and what is the is it an all Day event? Okay, yeah, it's

    me. Events, empathy Summit. And May. Oh, there it is. So here I'm going to put the schedule into the chat. Okay, so the main thing is, we need help at seven o'clock Pacific Time to facilitate an empathy circle. Yeah, I can definitely be there for that, yeah, so you can drop in and out, but the let me see if I can find the Google Doc for it.

    Yeah, so I don't know if you saw it. It's in the it's in the chat, oh, I didn't return. Do return? So you can download it, and here's sort of a planning page, so I can put you down as one of the that's the wrong page. That was our other planning page Summit.

    Years, multiple pages here, that was our planning page. I think that the last one, and that's not even it too I got too many documents, but anyway that those are related to the conference. But let's see.

    Okay, so it looks like you speak in the morning at 830

    that's like a keynote. Got half an hour, which I'm going to talk about, you know, the definition project. So, and then at seven o'clock, we do the empathy circle, and we have an hour and a half for doing that with the attendees, and we'll have breakout rooms. And so we need facilitators for those.

    How many total attendees are you expecting? You know,

    they had 100 last time they had the room full, she thought it was be less, because the time is going to be kind of California to Australia. Time they're in Australia, there's gonna be a lot less people. She thought, maybe 40 or so. Okay,

    yeah, well, definitely put me down as facilitators, and I will make sure that I can come to your keynote that's dirty my time. I'm gonna put that in that. Oh my gosh. I'm just looking at that week, and it's an insane week. I'll just walk you through it briefly. There's another empathy conference. I can't remember who's putting this on, but it's online. It's Monday and Wednesday, Daryl,

    or is it Daryl? Daryl putting that one on. Cameron is putting has one. Then there's

    no. Well, I went to that one that was a couple of, oh, okay, um, and then I'm presenting in Daryl lab on Tuesday,

    this Tuesday, uh, the 20th.

    And then my son is graduating from sixth grade on Wednesday, and we have like, 1000 meetings for that sports camp. My kids get out of school. So on Friday, so, yeah, you had that camp that you're talking about plan, yeah, and so then that camp happens the week after. So it's all sorts of crazy right now. And just lots of when everybody is pushed past their limit, everybody gets testy. Mm, hmm, yeah, that's what we're dealing with right now, and we're all trying really hard to be kind to each other and have empathy. But there's just, you know, when you are tired, you're meeting until 10pm about nitpicky details on stuff, people start to lose their minds. Okay, so this most recent thing you sent me is the one I should be looking at.

    I don't know how it looks like. I have three. Let me

    well they see the empathy Summit. Those are kind of planning or other planning pages the empathy summit may think this is, this is their link. So from here, you can see there, and I'll send you the the URL once I get it, okay.

    Um, so this is a co presented by your organization, and this organization, yeah, in Australia, right, okay, and

    they, last year, they did, they've been working with universities. So last year they worked with the university in Prague. And it was actually held in Prague this year. They were going to do it at UC Santa Cruz, you know, here, yeah, in Santa Cruz. And then the university actually canceled, because all the Trump stuff going on with all the universities, so they actually had all their schedules and everything, hotels, flights, everything booked. And then they said, No, we can't hold it because we don't know what's happening. So, oh, that's crazy, yeah, because they had people coming from Australia and other places, and so you can see what kind of effects all this stuff is having.

    Yeah, that's so unfortunate. As much fun as it is to still hear presentations online. There's nothing about it that's the same as being in person, yeah? Because you don't just chat with each other and share ideas the way you would if you were in person. So that's so unfortunate.

    Yeah? So anyway, it'll be online this year. Who knows for next year, but it's really nice that they they at Prague, Jana and Ruth had presented a fishbowl empathy circle, and everybody liked it so much that they wanted to kind of go deeper and actually hold one with attendees. That's, yeah, that's great, yeah.

    Um, all right. Do you want to talk through your presentation at all.

    Okay, well, I did sort of go over it last time. The point where I'm at now is been starting to tackle the affective, cognitive, empathic concern model. So you know the I've presented that the the presentation twice, and I want to add now least that model and how it compares to the holistic empathy, you know, model and to the empathy circle. So I can maybe just give you a quick review here what I've been working on. Kind of get your take on it.

    Yeah, I'd love to see it. Yeah. So

    if we go to defining empathy site, got the to do the in the effective. So it's like just a little overview of the of the issues related so, and it's all kind of still rough, because I've been going a lot of different directions with it, but, you know, kind of addressing, and I can't put it all into the presentation, but this is kind of for the larger you know, just addressing the larger model, because, I mean, it's like the dominant model, and I think we're both kind of like that model doesn't really work very well. It has too many inconsistencies and and even the terminology. So even starting from the inaccurate dualistic mindset, you know, saying, where

    it's two separate things, is that what you're saying? Yeah. And

    so the whole, the whole model, is kind of based on that. So I think the model is overly academic. I mean, who wants to hear about affective and cognitive empathy, kind of in regular circles? I. Think, plus it's inaccurate, inconsistent. Even within that model, they're defining it differently. So there's not, like, even a consensus about what affective and cognitive empathy model is

    definitely consistent with what I've been seeing like within affective sometimes they're talking about motion, contagion, emotional understanding or emotional awareness. And then cognitive, they're talking about perspective taking, or

    what's the other thing, imaginative or just understanding. Yeah,

    so understanding. And then I think even some of them talk about understanding the emotion, so that overlaps with the affective so it's very Yeah,

    and can you, can you understand an emotion without having a visceral sense of the emotion as you speak about it, you know it means, like, if you say fear, you know it raises a sense of what fear feels like in your consciousness, because those neurons are wired together. It's kind of like George Lakoff, he talks about, don't think of an elephant. You can't not think of an elephant in that sense. So, I mean, it's a little overlap there, but just that, that there's subtle feelings underneath. And so anyway, it's all the whole dualistic mindset. I don't did you get to see that? Dan savy,

    um, gosh, I, um, I had it up for a couple of weeks, planning on getting to it, just because there's been all this other stuff. And then I closed it on accident. Um, let me see if I can find it in my Google Drive. I listened to some of it, but I didn't do the whole thing.

    It's just that I think he's coming from the phenomenologist viewpoint. And I think phenomenologists aren't doing the dualistic mindset. So they're the ones I think that we're probably more in tuned with than Rogers. Rogers was, as I understood, a phenomenologist, too. So they don't, you know, put it into that dualistic sort of mindset. I mean, it totally dominates here in the United States, as I understand it's in the Anglo Saxon world, it's kind of big, but not the Europeans, a bit more towards phenomenology.

    Oh, that's interesting, yeah,

    yeah. And it's also even that is losing support, because I worked with Allison. Can't remember her last name, but she's at Green Bay, Wisconsin. She has a lab there. We were talking about this topic, and she says even among the academic community, is starting to lose support this dualistic view. And when I we talked to Marco yacoboni, you know, he's the a neuroscientist out of UCLA. He did a book called mirroring people, and he even inside, he said, you know, affect and feeling and thinking is just two sides of the same coin, you know. So this, I think that there's a lot of What's his last name again, iacovoney, um, ultra empathy, Marco, okay,

    there we go, mirroring people. Yeah, I haven't even heard of that book. Yeah,

    he's like, you know, really, top researcher.

    Oh, definitely need to look at his research. But here's

    a link. You know, I did a couple interviews with him. He's okay, accessible. So he was one of the people that brought in, you know, mirror neurons

    at work. Okay, so I'm sure I've read some of his stuff. Just didn't realize who it was I was reading.

    Okay, so that's just some broad and if you go to the home page here, I've kind of gone into more depth. I have to, you know, is my introduction. What makes the holistic empathy model unique? You know, moves from individualistic, from abstract to personal, eliminates reason, feeling dichotomy creates an integrative and inclusive approach. So I think it's more inclusive the model, and it's practical and usable. So that's, anyway, on the homepage of defining empathy, been kind of working on that and then going back to the model. So, you know, starting to write down, what are some of the specific problems with affective empathy model, kind of going a little bit deeper and with the cognitive empathy, but I've been going into just working on the cognitive so there's a whole page just on cognitive and I've been going through all the. Like chat all the AI and doing search. So I go through and doing a search, you know, list 10 ways cognitive empathy is defined, and then just in doing searches. So I've gone through all these chat engines to see how, you know, just to see how they address the questions. So you can there's a chat GBT, Gemini, meta. And so that's kind of I'm working on right now. Kind of great doing a systematic review. And then I just Yeah, and then I've been kind of going through seeing how it reviews this topic. And I'll do that for effective empathy too. I just was just doing these quotes. So I say, give me 50 quotes on the definition of cognitive empathy. The words cognitive empathy should be in the quote. The output format should be author, Name, Last, first. This should be on a separate line and bold quote source, sort the list alphabetically by author, last name, bold words, cognitive empathy. So I'm trying to get a like this. This was the first version 50. I'm going to do like 100 so you have, like, a little list of all these academics and how they I love this, and so I'll do that for cognitive kind of do kind of systematically, so we have and then it's sorting. You know, if you go through these, these lists, it's, you know, there's understanding is, like a big word, like it's understanding others. It's imagining, which I think could map into the imaginative empathy, understanding is, is just the basic empathy. We just sense into the other person, kind of the wholeness of their being. And as you sense into you create a sense of understanding the relationships of in a map, you know, sort of mental map of of what that other person is. Um, there's identification, you know, and knowing mental so these are just a few of the headings I used to have to kind of log through. It's very tedious. Yeah, it's almost like, it's like a it's like a Gordian knot of just incoherency, if you ask me, everyone at one level, you know, and it's dry and it's that's one thing I loved about Carl Rogers, is it for me, at least it's easy reading. It makes sense. It's his work is just very accessible, and it's not so dry and academic. I that's,

    that's been my experience as well. I just don't see the value in writing in a way that nobody wants to read it. Like, who are you benefiting with that? Yeah,

    and I don't know if I can do any better, you know, I try. I'll try. Yeah. So anyway, that's kind of where I'm at. There's, I'm still, you know, kind of throwing a lot in here. It's still kind of in the middle of the sausage making, and I just got to get something minimal for the presentation, you know, just an idea or two about cognitive and effective empathy.

    Yeah. And the crazy thing about that is, you're probably going to end up spending like, 20 hours on this part of it, and have five minutes to talk about it, right? Yeah,

    just to be sure that I know what I'm talking about. Yes, well, grounded, you know, and I can back up everything.

    Yeah, that's amazing. How much you're doing on that.

    Yeah, it's my main project, you know, currently so and it is the affective cognitive model is the most, you know, challenging, because it's the most dominant model out there. So, oh, yeah. So that's kind of the where I'm at. So I'm not quite sure how we can address that. It's, it's kind of having a how to lay out a systematic, you know, easy to understand, mapping that model onto a holistic empathy,

    right? And do you see any overlaps, or do you think that it should just be scrapped the this model should be scrapped in favor of the holistic approach.

    Well, that's it. So it's holistic empathy. When I'm in an empathy circle listening, you know, and I'm listening to you, I'm it seems like it's, it's a holistic listening, right? I'm listening to any thought you have, any feeling, you have, just whatever is sort of arising, kind of in the wholeness of who you are. I'm trying to listen and reflect that, though I think it's sort of how to map that. And because some of the some of them are saying, well, it's. It's understanding through understanding the feelings and thoughts of others. Some would say it's just so, so it I mean, I think that just the listening to someone for the wholeness of who they are, deeply listening, being present, kind of captures a lot of it. And then there are some this, you know, that direct empathy with imaginative empathy, and separating those, I think so I'm kind of looking at, where are they defining cognitive empathy is? Is imagination? And say, well, imagination, it fits in the imaginative empathy bucket, because it is a different phenomenon, I think, than just being present, listening to someone you know, for the fencing into their experience. So I think it's taking all of this and putting it into those two buckets.

    Could you describe what you mean by that? A little bit more to me, like that. They're two separate phenomena, because the way that I the way that I think about it when you're listening and sensing into somebody, the way that I experience it when I'm fully present with them, I find myself imagining what their life was like before they before our encounter, right? So what led them to believe the way they do, to feel the way they do, to react the way they do? So I see them as intertwined, but, yeah, they're

    intertwined too. It's not a 100 you can't separate them when you're listening, you're going to be perhaps using some imagination at times, right? So, but I do think it's a it's another level of of of the phenomenon, in the sense that, you know, with the role taking like we can clearly, if we're doing an empathy circle, like the one we do with the with the family in conflict, that and you're imagining yourself being that person in conflict. It's very different that imagination than listening directly to someone and hearing them and reflecting and sensing, sort of a direct sensing into who they are. And even while you're doing that direct sensing, you might have judgment, you might have like, oh, I want to get out of here, or all these other things that are in the back of your mind, but you're still staying present with with that person. And you may have some imagination too, but you still so it's all kind of mixed. It seems like it's all sort of mixed in together, but you still bring that, bring that empathic presence in the is kind of like the main, sort of felt, the main experience that you have. So I do think that there is a separation. You can make that separation with imagination, though.

    Yeah, and would you say that that overlaps with people who are actors? I know you've used the Meryl Streep example for imaginative empathy. I just wonder, how often in the real world, do we put ourselves in role playing situations? Right? It's not very I mean, yes, it happens, like, especially in like training situations where we're learning how we would respond in a scenario. So like in a business training or

    medical they do those, yeah,

    they do lots of they do lots of role plays, like, how would I respond to the patient if they brought this kind of concern to me? So, yeah, that's, that's common, but I don't think it's anywhere near as common as the kind of imaginative empathy, where I'm imagining you when you were younger, or something like that, right? If I'm

    yeah, if I'm saying, Oh, when I was younger, I had this experience. You could imagine that, or you could just say, well, being totally present. I hear you really have these experience when you were younger. So it does seem like, I mean, it does seem like two different I mean, you can even say it's a different phenomenon. What, in terms of, you know when babies are born, they you know when one baby cries, the others cry, because they sort of feet have that feeling comes into their presence, of their being, and then they sort of take it on. So they're very sensitive to taking on sort of emotional contagion. And it's not until you're, you know, what is it? A year and a half or, I think, or two years that they do that Sally and test that you familiar with the Sally and test so at that point, there's a point where they can't put them imagine themselves in the situation of the other person to imagine. In what they're seeing, how they're seeing the the world. So there's, there is no

    separation, yeah, them and others.

    So it does seem like there's, there is a there is a cognitive, not a cognitive, a developmental level of empathy that happens and, and like in the empathy circle, we very rarely do we do the imaginative empathy, but we have done it and, and I don't talk about it much, but I do see it as is a phenomenon that can be and it, I think it does help with and a lot of times I see the definitions out there are, imagine, you imagine Obama, empathy was imagining yourself in someone's situation. And it can be right, it can be wrong too. It's there's higher chance of it being wrong because you're not directly there. You're not getting that active listening feedback, for example, is trying to create a greater accuracy. So I don't know, I know that we had, was it? Veronica no Valerie camera. It was in here, she talked about imaginative empathy. You know, she thought, for her, all empathy is imaginative but, yeah, I don't know, how do you

    um, yeah, I do see what you're saying where it seems like it's two separate things, where, if you're imagining, it's kind of like that, that I'm feeling where you're imbuing the other person with your version of their reality, right you? So you think because, I think because every single one of us has a different lens through which we see the world, and so it's categorically going to be different from the way they're actually experiencing it. And so when we're imagining, we're doing our best, but it is always going to be filtered through that lens, right? And so we're, we're, we're thinking, this is what I think they would feel during that. And so that's where the imaginative empathy is inaccurate. And be, yeah, yeah. It can be very inaccurate. Unfortunately, at times it it's, I think it's better than not trying, because that, I see that as a first step where, if you and I think I've mentioned this before, when we're talking with children, the best way to that I have found so far. And I'm not to say that I'm an expert in this area, but I have found it to be effective to help children to see the other person's perspective by asking them, how would you feel if that happened to you? Right? So it's, it's like, it seems like that's one of the developmental stages of I'm still very self focused, and I can imagine what I might feel like if I were in that person's shoes, but it's still very self focused, right? Trying to get to that next level. But you're not actually opening up truly empathically by listening to them right? And I think that, along with the kohlbergs Moral development stages, he talks about how there's this higher level of moral development that most of us never reach, where we we get to the point that we understand fairness and we understand authority, and you know, we need to follow the rules for the greater good, but there is kind of this transcendent form of morality where we see the reason for the rules, the reason for the authority, and we can understand that sometimes those rules need to be bent. And so it's like it's a higher level of morality. So bringing in that example just to say that I think that there is this higher form of empathy that most of us never get to and that is the form of empathy that's holistic, where you're able to just set aside yourself for a little while and fully let them talk until they until they feel heard. And I know I'm preaching to the choir with that one, because you developed the empathy circle, but I just think it's very uncommon for people to engage in that kind of empathy, even though they think they're empathizing, right? So it is still empathy, but I think it's developmentally not quite there. And you know what? I really should have written a paper about this, and maybe I will next semester, like the developmental stages of empathy. I think I'm going to do that in the fall.

    There are some out there. I think the. Yeah,

    I need to read them and incorporate them into my understanding.

    Well, it's a holistic empathy that would be seeing the whole like, what, how the like, all the fact, all the how people are empathizing with each other. So it's like a sensitivity to that and being supportive of of that. So I mean, there's that holistic. The other is with the with the children. You can ask that the child, like, you know, what do you think the other person was feeling? Or, and I've done nephews and nieces before, is I listened to them, right? I say, Well, what was up for you when this happened? And I empathically listen to them, and then I bring them into not like what don't imagine what the other person is. You know, going through is actually listen to them and the other person, the other child, actually shares what's going on for them, and then then they reflect back their understanding and get them into basically an empathy circle with each other, so that they don't they're not imagine. They're not using the image. They're not being, they're not imagining. They're actually hearing from the other person what the their experience was, which is going to be closer to the real experience. I

    think that's really neat. So it doesn't have to be this framework that is rigid. You can take it into interactions, even with children, and you're just you're using the framework as your launching point, right? But you're recognizing that not everybody wants to sit down for an hour and a half long empathy circle, you know, and take turns like that, but you can still learn, use what you've learned from the circle to inform those kinds

    of, yeah, the dynamic. There's an underlying dynamic there, and I've done it with like, you know, I have a at the time, five year old niece, six year old nephew, and you know, they always get in the fight with each other. And one time they were in a fight, I listened to I sat down with my nephew and niece. They were both there. I listened to him, you know, reflected back. Listened to her, reflected back. Here. Did that a couple times to model it. Then I asked them to do it with each other, and they actually were able to, you know, sort of understand and work them out with some understanding, you know, come to an agreement. And then when we were done, it was kind of cute. My My niece, who's always losing the fights because she's, you know, weaker, right, younger and weaker. He said, I like empathy circles. Let's do it again. Oh, that's

    great. Oh, that makes me want to do it with my kids. Haven't yet. I mean, I've, I've been teaching them how to empathize, but I haven't implemented that model. How long did that actually take for them to understand the value of

    it? I don't know. It was about a 20 minute event. That's great.

    Are these the kids of your my brother, Mr. In law, yeah. Okay, so this was happening, and did she hate it or

    no, it was like then another time. What happened is my other nephew, who's a bit older, and the same niece, Annie and Teddy. This was the other one, was Gilbert. So they got into an issue where they had made popsicles, you know, out of ice cubes, and then Annie had eaten Teddy's popsicle, and he was really upset, and he ran to his bed, and he laid in his bed, you know, with his arms crossed, and he wasn't going to talk to anyone, you know. And you know, my brother, toxic brother and sister in law, you know, their thing is, it's just, you're wrong, you know, you get punished or whatever. Right? It's like it's sort of a punishment. And she said, Okay, well, show me how you handle it. You know, so I went over there, he's in bed, and I said, Oh, do you want to tell me what happened? And he just shook his head, you know, like, I'm not going to even talk. It's okay. What I'm hearing is you just don't want to talk about it. You know, you're you're just feeling upset. Is that right? And then so I just kind of, and he just was really quiet. And then, and I kind of reflected a few times, you know, trying to be he would his signals, emotional signals, were only shaking his head or nothing. And I just reflective, actually, you don't want to talk about it, and you're feeling upset. And and then Annie came over, and so she was there, and I started, I said, What's going on with you? And and then I reflected back, oh, I ate his popsicle, and, you know, I'm sorry about it, or something like that. And and I reflected back, and, you know, tried to get him to speak, but he would, he would still be really quiet. And then I. Remember exactly how it unfolded. But Annie said, Well, I said, Well, what can we do? And I said, Well, I can make him a new popsicle. And then he brightened up, and then they both jumped up and made a popsicle. And that was that. And there was no judging anyone or saying you're bad, don't you do this? It was, you know, empathically, getting them to dialog with each other, and or, and I act as facilitator, because he wouldn't even dialog, but I did reflect back what he was saying, non verbally, you know. And then, yeah, yeah.

    And I'm just, I'm having all of these ideas about what was happening inside of his mind, just from the emotional intelligence research on that. And he's not able to access his prefrontal cortex in the moment when he's just hijacked. You know, his amygdala is trying to protect him from this threat, right? And so he shuts down, and that looks like that's his. So he's maybe fight or flight or freeze, maybe he's the freeze version, right? And he can't access that prefrontal cortex until he is able to put words to it, right? And so, and I'm helping, but we're helping, right? You're modeling for him what the words are, and so it's actually helping him make those connections in his brain again. And so it seems like that's eventually why he was able to actually come out of it, because he was frozen, and you helped him by empathizing with him, you gave him the words to make sense of what was happening inside of his brain,

    and they got to dialog about it too, you know, they got to hear each other out. And then Annie actually came up with the solution of what he she could do. And I was just so surprised how he went from this total, you know, blocked because they were best friends again. That's amazing. So funny. I just how kids can make that shift so quickly. Oh,

    it is amazing. And how quickly they can go from being best friends to

    hating each other. Yeah, it goes the other way, the other way too.

    But they are resilient, so that's good to that's good to know that they don't last forever in those states.

    And having these tools, because I haven't seen them for a while because I'm not, you know, visiting over there. But it used to be that they get into fights all the time, because my brother is quite authoritarian, you know, and the sister in laws, you know, bipolar has just all kinds of kind of those kind of bipolar kind of issues, you know, very sort of domineering and stuff and, you know, and so they have a whole different way. They kind of let them do whatever they want until they get hit a point where they tell them, you know, they use kind of heaviness, or, you know, authority to just shut them up or make them do what they want. But when I was there, I was like, I say, Well, what do we do? We got a conflict where we do and they say, Oh, we have an empathy circle, so we're starting to train them, but you have to do it consistently to keep it going. I think, yeah, that's

    so tricky, because then they'll just get back into the mode of how things are in their home, yeah, and that becomes more of the habitual way of dealing with situations. So it is unfortunate that you can't have more of an influence there. Yeah,

    that's the one thing I'm sad about, yeah,

    yeah, that's so tricky. Even in my own family, my husband's much more authoritarian than I am, and he's even said I spend too much time empathizing, and sometimes you just need to lay down the law. But I think that there's, it's a tricky balance, because kids do also need to have structure and rules, right? And so if you're just, if you, if you get too deep into the mode of just following whatever they want and wherever they, you know, wherever their thoughts are leading them and their their moral standards or whatever. I wonder how much it can become where we're not even we're not actually guiding them, but if we're empathizing effectively, then we're helping them to discover those higher levels of moral reasoning.

    The Empathy circle is very structured, and it is a boundary. The whole point is like it's combined. It's using structure to support empathy, though. So it's getting, you know, the family members, to use empathic listening, turn taking reflection, to work through different issues, so it totally puts in boundaries. Yeah, I love that point of it.

    Yeah, that's a good point. I'm just thinking in general of without the empathy circle, if you're if your focus is just empathize. And I know that we've talked. About this before, then you're not seeing, you're only seeing where they are right now, and you're kind of just allowing that to guide every right. You're just

    following along with them. And not, yeah, you're doing the listening, and they're not doing the listening right. And so,

    yeah, empathy circle, once again, solves the problem.

    Well, it's a minimum structure, you know, that I can think, you know, that I see that sort of it really, I don't know it. It fits a lot of the dynamics. You know, you don't have to use the structure, per se, but the underlying dynamic is you can apply, you know, just sort of on the fly, you know, yeah,

    and as a facilitator, you're engaging in that form of you haven't Have you called it meta empathy, or what's the word that you've used for it, where you're noticing the level of empathy that's happening between the other participants?

    Yeah, I just call that holistic empathy. Okay, so that's

    where you're Yeah, that's where you're going with the holistic where it's the general feeling in the group, right? And so they're not noticing it because they're too caught up on what's going on inside their own minds. But you've been able to quiet that, and you have the skills and the training to be able to notice it and help them to navigate where they can't see where they're going. So

    when the way I hold it is, there's a real relational empathy, you know, the kind of the holistic empathy. And want to bring people into that sort of space, right? Let's say it's in a family and you know, maybe they're not ready for it, but so maybe you give empathy to empathic listening with the intention of bringing them into the mutuality of it, right? So it's like, I'll be willing to listen, and then now, will you listen to me? Are you ready to listen and make it mutual. And I did that with my sister in law, who, you know, she was going into one of her manic phases. I did listening for her for like, almost two hours or something. It's okay. I'm just gonna listen. You need some emergency empathy. And then after that, I said, Well, now I want you to be mutual. Do you want to listen to me? And she was in her manic phase, I'm not listening. To you, so I said, well, and we don't have a relationship, and let me know when you want to have a mutually empathic relationship. So it's, I guess that's something I'm experimenting with too. Is like, where do you draw the boundaries? You know, if it's not going to be a mutually empathic relationship, then I don't want to be, you know, part of it.

    Yeah, that's so tricky. I just had a thought that I I just need to say this is completely off topic. But before I before I forget this, I am potentially going to seek IRB approval for some of the interviews that I've done with different people, including when I interviewed you, and which at which point I if they do give me permission to continue with it as like an official research project, because I've just been using it as pilot work to understand the constructs. But if I do get approval, then I'll need you to fill out a consent form to be able to use the things that you've said honestly, since we have all of our conversations recorded as well, I just think that it makes sense to even fold in the conversations that we've had into my research. Great. Yeah,

    okay, so I think I'm gonna, huh, I'm glad for it to be used. Yeah,

    yeah. I just think that that's that's so beneficial to get it out into multiple channels. And so as I'm writing up the IRB application, I'm going to add this into it. And since you have these all on YouTube. I could even point them to your YouTube channel and say, you can, you can view all of these. You can see that there was no adverse outcomes. And so retroactively, at times, they are willing to give IRB approval. So anyway, I just wanted to say that before I forgot. But that'll just, that'll probably be starting next month this month again. As you know, it's crazy,

    and what's the research going to be? What's the structure? Um, well,

    it's qualitative, which means just analyzing interviews, analyzing conversations. And, you know, I could even, man, I mean, you have so much information and so many videos that could be analyzed to pull out themes. Are you familiar with the the process of coding qualitative interviews? Okay, so basically, the easy way to understand it is. Is hashtags where you look at a sentence. And so we would have a transcript of all of our interactions, and we would have different hashtags. So one would be affective empathy, right? And so then every time that came up in any of our transcripts, we would put that hashtag, like just for the entire phrase, or the entire paragraph or something. And then you can, you can search by hashtag, and then everything that has come up in all of the interviews, and I've interviewed several other people as well, anytime that comes up, then it would all be in one location. And so then it helps you to get a broader understanding of what everybody is saying about that specific topic. So I like it a lot. I find it really fulfilling. Number one, I love I love hearing what people have to say. I love talking to people and number two, I love going back over it and trying to pull more meaning out of it based on, yes, we had an interaction, but I didn't even see these themes that were over and over and over again. So I think that could be a really interesting project.

    Well, the notebook LM is kind of a the possibility of a framework for that, because all of our discussions or in notebook LM, and you can, yeah, and it's pulling out the themes, yeah, it'll summarize, uh, so there's, I mean, the AI is, I mean, just that I can go in there and say, give me 50 quotes. Here's how I want it laid out. And I was, I was going to get maybe 100 quotes. I'm just kind of like doing the how to do the query, like, what's the output that I want? And then the other is, how to break that down, because that's what I'm I guess that's actually the question is, is how, what's the what's a good way for the presentation to address the cognitive, affective model, and map it onto the holistic model. I guess

    I love that you can put in. So here's my model, here's this other model. Where do they overlap? Oh, I didn't even think about try, yeah, I mean using AI for that. I mean, I put in a graphic that I had created, and I couldn't figure out what should go in one of the quadrants. I just didn't know what words to use for it, and it said, Oh, well, this is how you could explain that what goes in that specific quadrant. So it's really good at helping you to think through things like, it makes connections that we can't make. The one thing I've seen recently is, I don't know if you've seen this with AI that sometimes it hallucinates and like so I would, I would randomly go back through those quotes and just search them directly and see if it's making it up. Because I've seen it do that before. Well, it will literally give me what looks like a real article with real authors on a real topic that they usually do write about, but it made up the whole thing. It's like they never actually wrote an article with that title in that journal. And so it like gives me a quote, and then it gives me a reference, but it totally made up the whole thing.

    I wonder if you can use other AIS, get one AI to do it, and then have the other AI double check it, or double check it against a couple. My

    husband was talking about that this morning. He works with AI all day, every day his work. And he said, that's one of the great things you can do, is using multiple platforms to check the work that was done by the others. And you can even have it check itself. And it's really good at going back through and finding its own mistakes. Yeah,

    and it's not only the hallucinates, it's also, I mean, trying to create something new, like the holistic empathy model, and then compare it doesn't know that model, because it's not out there. So well

    you could, could you give it everything that you've thought out about? Yeah,

    I've been thinking about that too. How to do that? Like, say, here's this model, yeah, I

    wonder if it could even help you visualize it. I bet it could, you know, like, come up with a graphic that helps just describe this, like, this novel model,

    yeah, yeah. And also that model I had of, you know, two people, and then how are the feelings moving between them? I wonder if AI could create an interface for that so you could change like like to be able to visually model like reactions versus empathy. You know, versus sensing into someone, and emotional contagion versus reactions, that it could be visually presented and that you could somehow adjust the levers on it, like, you know, increase this. And there's something like that, I think would be really helpful, because it's one of the problems with with with those explaining that is, there's, I haven't seen any good visualizations, you know, to be able to visualize the concepts, because it tends to be verbal, and if it's just verbal, you can, kind of, you can one person, can different people read different things into, into the verbal description. Right,

    right, I agree with that. Would you mind sharing your screen and showing me those graphics again? I just remember really, really liking them. I

    I was using mural. I

    I haven't used mural before.

    Do you like it? Um, yeah, it's I like the visualization. And yeah,

    I like, I like the way that looks. I

    Is it a Google app or something, or Microsoft?

    It's It's stone company, but I'm not really sure. I

    I'm not really sure where that oh

    is that? That personal emotion diagram?

    Oh, there it is. I is maybe put a bookmark there.

    So, yeah, yeah, if there's a program that could create this, like curing feelings, empathy the listener feels into the we have. The speaker, active listener. Speaker expresses depression. The listener can sense the depression, and this is however they take it on. Oh, and this is so that you feel a bit of a sense, a little bit of the depression of the other person. So you just kind of hear them talk about depression. You can see and sort of sense their depression versus you become depressed, and kind of become absorbed with your own feelings. You don't have the empathic space, which the gray is sort of modeling. Is that empathic space?

    Oh, okay, I see what you're saying. So whereas in the second model there, empathic space is not present, because we're just now feeling your depression, yeah,

    okay. And it could be through emotional contagion, state matching, identification, you know, some sort of reaction, or emotional contagions, was another model. So here's the depression, you know, totally takes over both people. So that would be sort of emotional contagion, actually. And so here the empathy the the active listener feels into the speakers experience reflects back their understanding. You're feeling depressed, the speaker continues sharing, and the listeners stay present and reflects back their understanding. And here I was trying to model, and this is kind of fits in with cognitive empathy, right? So you're listening to the person. And, you know, talking about depression, and you're sensing their depression like, you know, it's and, but then that you create a sense of understanding, right? That you start creating a mental model of that person and and how you can infer things from that model. You can, you know, see the relationships like they're depressed because, you know, they just broke up with their relationship, and they feel really lonely and they feel hopeless, and this ties into their childhood when they were abandoned or something, and, and so you start creating that model of who that person is, and, and that's the the the empathy in this case would be sort of the process of developing that understanding which they say cognitive

    would you say that that's where imaginative empathy comes into that situation, because you're creating a mental map, but you're imagining part of what might have led them to that. Or do you see that is something separate.

    Yeah, I had sort of thought it separately, but

    just based on how we were discussing it earlier, it seems like that same thing. So that mental map is, in my understanding, where imaginative empathy comes into that scenario.

    Well, the imaginative empathy. I mean, there's imaginative empathy, imagining and empathy. There's kind of two main concepts for that. There's imagine self and imagine other, the I don't know if you've seen those definitions. So here's this. You hear the situation, the speaker, you know, they relationship broke up, they they lost their job, and they have a situation. So I can imagine myself being them in their situation, and I kind of experience that, and it could be accurate or not accurate, right? Because you don't know, you don't have an error checking on that. Or you can imagine them like, Oh, I know who that person is. What's it like for them being in that situation? So sometimes that imaginative empathy is divided into those two categories. So yeah, it gets kind of subtle. There is, is that? Is that imaginative? Or are you in the situation creating a mental map? Is that imaginative? Or is it kind of putting a puzzle together? You know, that's sure. Yeah,

    it seems like when you're putting together the pieces, there might be little pieces that are missing. And the way your brain makes the jump from this piece through this missing piece up to this one, is you have to imagine something so you create a story about what it probably was. Yeah, because our brains are really good at making those kinds of, like causal connections. And I mean, maybe we're wrong, but our that's kind of just how we're wired, is we want to be able to make sense of things, and so we use the existing information. I like the idea of calling it like a puzzle, and you have, let's say it's a 100 piece puzzle. You might have 40 pieces right in different areas, and so some of it makes sense, and then other pieces, other parts of the puzzle don't make sense, so your brain fills in the gaps. So I think it's kind of a it's a combination of, like, creating a map and imagination that's happening,

    yeah, it's, uh, yeah, yeah. I guess I have a lot of questions myself, like, I can see the the issue and, um, there does seem to be a distinct difference if I imagine myself in your situation. I mean, you can like, I like with the mediation circle, right where you role play different characters. So that's a really strong difference there. What we're talking about is the subtle things that are going on in the mind. So that's, that's, yeah, I have real So

    is that where you would separate it out between, like, the self imaginative versus the other, imaginative empathy, like, because if you're trying to create a mental map of their inner world. You are not doing self imaginative empathy, like putting yourself like, how would I feel if I was experiencing that? Right? You're just trying to fill in the gaps of what you don't

    you might be little, might be little, little bits of both going on. What is the question you asked your your children, when they're about what does the

    other person say? How would you feel if that happened to you?

    Okay, so you're asking, imagine self and right? So that's because you could say, how do you think that person feels when that happens to them versus you?

    Like when I ask that they don't quite understand? On, like my five year olds, they don't get that, yeah, but they can remember when they have experienced it before. And so that's that seems to be something that they can grasp more easily. I gotta go, unfortunately, all right, I will see you in two weeks, okay? And was, I can't remember if you said how busy you are in the morning, but is there any chance we could move up our meeting to a little bit earlier? Because I didn't realize that my kids have a half day of school on the last day of school that day. So if we could meet in the morning, that would be easier for me.

    Yeah, Fridays don't work. Is there another day or

    yeah, um, no, there's really not, um, can we just do a 30 minute meeting on that? Okay? Because I'll get them home from school, get them settled there, I think they're getting out at noon, and kids are just so excited on the last day of school. And I don't want to say, Okay, bye, I have to go to a meeting. Now, give you an

    hour earlier, like next in two weeks, is that like 11?

    Let me find out exactly what time they get out of school, because if they get out at noon, which is 11 your time, then that's when I need to be picking them up. Okay, I will get back to you on that, because I actually don't know what time they're schooling. So let's plan on that same time, noon your time on the 23rd unless I tell you differently.

    And think of any ideas for how to kind of map the cognitive affective empathy onto the like, what would be a good thing to talk about, what's the most salient thing in order to to address first, you know, okay,

    yeah, I'll definitely give that some thought. All right, we won't see each other until after I've presented in Daryl Cameron's lab,

    oh, what are you presenting?

    I haven't I haven't created the presentation yet, but I'm going to incorporate some of my my story of over empathizing after the death of my husband's friend, um, and his family, and kind of just have it as a springboard for conversation about all of the different because it's their lab. Is empathy and moral development, or is it empathy and moral decision making? That's what it is. And so there's a lot of moral components that come into play with this specific scenario. So I want to have a discussion about that, and I also want to talk about some of these definition issues and maybe some of the underlying philosophies of the way we study it in psychology, and then potentially bring in some of the other philosophers, like Buber Levinas, all of those. So it just depends on how much time we have, because I like the idea of just getting into a really deep discussion about it, rather than it being me presenting to them. So, yeah, I did want

    to have a, you know, the holistic model be stress tested by talking to people like Daryl and so forth. Say, Hey, here's this model. What's your take on it and criticisms on it?

    Yeah, so as I'm preparing it, I do want to, I do want to look through what we have in the defining empathy website. And I pulled that up so that I am referring back to that this week as I'm preparing, and we'll see how much time we end up having, I know we'll have an hour. So I'm going to just, I'm going to have to think through how to hit the highlights without getting too deep into discussion mode. Yeah, but I also don't have a lot of time to prepare for it, because I'm creating a curriculum right now as well.

    So anyway, what's the curriculum? It's for

    that sports camp, and it's stressful, and it's that's the thing that we are having, like, some disagreements and stressful conversations about right now, use the empathy circle, right? Good idea, If only, if only we had time. Because people are just there in go mode and they're like, no, don't have time to empathize. Let's just get this done. Okay, but yeah, so send your good vibes my way that we'll be able to educate well with each other. Yeah,

    great. All right, see you then. Well.