Promises, Pedagogy and Pitfalls: Empathy's Potential for Healing and Harm

This volume was first published by Inter-Disciplinary Press in 2016. The nature of empathy, its potential for healing and harm, and its potency to effect change for good or ill at inter-personal, ecological and global levels, are key themes represented in this interdisiciplinary volume. Section one looks at physiological and philosophical roots of empathy, exploring neurological factors as well as the question of human selfhood in relation to the 'other'. The notion of 'wrong' empathy then comes under scrutiny, where the potential for empathic responses to upturn moral codes is examined. This leads into a focus on the written word, with exploration of written text and the act of writing on empathic responses. The scope is widened in the final sections to focus on ways to teach empathy and potential global effects of expanded empathic awareness. Amidst critical challenges facing humanity today, it poses the crucial question: how can we find more peaceful communion with those whose differences we fear.