The Art of Empathy: A Complete Guide to Life's Most Essential Skill

by Karla McLaren

Overview

What if there were a single skill that could directly and radically improve your relationships and your emotional life? Empathy, teaches Karla McLaren, is that skill. With The Art of Empathy, she teaches us how to perceive and feel the experiences of others with clarity and authenticity—to connect with them more deeply and effectively.

Informed by current insights from neuroscience, social psychology, and healing traditions, this book explores:

Why empathy is not a mystical phenomenon but a natural, innate ability that we can strengthen and develop

• How to identify and regulate our emotions and boundaries

• The process of shifting into the perspective of others

• How to provide support in a sensitive and healthy way

• Insights for navigating our hyper-connected social landscape

• Targeted chapters for improving family, workplace, and intimate relationships

• Ways to expand our empathy to our community, global levels of society, and the natural world

Empathy, reflects Karla McLaren, is the skill that builds bridges— a skill that not only creates connection, but that helps us to be more effective in all areas of our lives.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781622030613
Publisher:	Sounds True, Incorporated
Publication date:	10/01/2013
Pages:	328
Sales rank:	376,254
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Karla McLaren

Karla McLaren, M.Ed., is an award-winning author, researcher, workplace consultant, and empathy expert. Her grand unified theory of emotions revalues even the most “negative” emotions and opens new pathways to self-awareness, effective communication, and healthy empathy. Her applied work, Dynamic Emotional Integration®, is a groundbreaking process that reveals the genius and healing power within the emotional realm. Learn more at karlamclaren.com and at empathyacademy.org.

 

Table of Contents

Preface: A Note to You ix

Part 1 Welcoming Empathy into Your Life 1

Chapter 1 What Is Empathy, and Why Is It Important? 3

Chapter 2 Defining and Redefining Empathy An Empathic Approach 17

Chapter 3 An Empath's Guide to Empathy Developing Your Social and Emotional Intelligence 49

Chapter 4 An Empath's Guide to Emotions Why Emotions Arise 83

Chapter 5 The Art of Empathy Gathering Your Tools 101

Part 2 Bringing Your Empathy into the World 137

Chapter 6 Empaths at Home: Creating a Sanctuary Where Empathy Can Flourish 139

Chapter 7 Empathic Friendships, Empathic Love Relationships as an Empathic Art Form 163

Chapter 8 Empathic Communication Getting into Sync with Others 183

Chapter 9 Empathic Mentoring, Empathic Parenting Nurturing and Supporting Empathy in Children 213

Chapter 10 Empathy at Work Excelling in the Art of Emotion Work 245

Chapter 11 Empathy for the World The Empathic Art of Social Justice 267

Epilogue Envisioning an Empathic Civilization, Together 279

Acknowledgments 281

Appendix A Emotional Vocabulary List 283

Appendix B Your Emotional Styles 287

Notes 289

Further Resources 299

Index 303

About the Author 313

Editorial Reviews

"Karla McLaren illuminates the rich, textured landscape of emotional intelligence. And in The Art of Empathy, Karla wisely explores the most important of all human feelings-empathy, the glue of all positive human relationships."
-PETER A LEVINE, PhD
Author of Healing Trauma, and Freedom from Pain

" Empathy and emotional sensitivity are important parts of our psycho-social makeup. They function, for the most part, in the background of our conscious awareness. After four decades of study, Karla McLaren has come up with lots of ideas for accessing those aspects of ourselves in constructive and organized ways. A natural empath, she has combined her own experience with current advances in neuroscience, psychology, and sociology to create this indepth, down-to-earth handbook for making empathy an active force in our lives. She includes specific mindfulness exercises to deal with issues such as grounding, boundaries, emotional honesty, and recharging our emotional selves. Whether your customers are highly empathic by nature or more emotionally constrained, this book provides lots of suggestions for making communication and interaction with others easier and more fulfilling."
-ANNA JEDRZIEWSKI, Retailing Insight -October Issue -

"Karla McLaren's unique, empathic view of emotions surprisingly revalues even the most 'negative' emotions and opens pathways to understanding the depths of the human soul."
-MICHAEL MEADE
Author of The World Behind the World

From the Publisher