Empathy/ Self Knowledge

Dustin BlumhagenEDGR 502November 20, 2014

Empathy and Self Knowledge Definitions

▪ EMPATHY: "the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner."

▪ SELF KNOWLEDGE: "knowledge or understanding of one's own capabilities, character, feelings, or motivations"

▪ “I do not ask the wounded person how he feels, I myself become the wounded person.”▪

― Walt Whitman, Song of Myself

The Major Elements of Empathy

▪ “Only through self-awareness is it possible to see the behavior of the observed person as an expression of his emotional state and to make a mental distinction between oneself and the ‘other self’”. (Blasco, 2012)

▪ In Blasco (2012), Hojat (2007) tells us that "empathy, from the Greek empatheia, means understanding someone else's feelings. In the English vocabulary empathy was used initially to describe the observers' feeling when interfacing with artistic expression. Afterwards, the term was related to understanding people, and in 1918, Southard incorporate the word empathy into the doctor-patient relationship, as a resource for facilitating diagnosis and therapeutics."

Classroom Context

▪ In Schonert-Reichl, Staub (1988) writes ‘‘acting to benefit others can result in personal changes that lead to more significant helping. It can promote a more positive evaluation of the welfare of people who have benefited from one’s actions and of people in general and a perception of oneself as a caring person willing to extend effort and make sacrifices for others’ sake’’ (p. 95).

▪ Students are future citizens and as educators it is our role to prepare them for the world. Lickona (1991) said that "important moral revolutions have been initiated by empathy felt for previously excluded groups (slaves, women, workers, children, the handicapped, and so on." (pg. 52) By modeling morality to students, teachers can help them become better humans.

Key Figures

NELSON MANDELA

• Mandela is well known and respected for his work to combat racism and stop the apartheid in South Africa. His early activities as a violent radical resulted in a jail term, from which he returned to become the President of South Africa. He advocated for racial equality, gay rights and supported communist economic ideals. His actions highlighted his belief that everyone should pursue peace and treat each other with respect.

WAB KINEW

• Kinew is a human rights activist in Canada. He rose to fame as a political hip hop artist before becoming a host on national broadcaster CBC. Through his journalism he discusses important issues like racism, especially in regards to aboriginal peoples. He has been involved in the Truth & Reconciliation Commission, which helps to create empathy between aboriginal people and settlers, specifically focused on the lasting effects of the horrific residential school system. He has helped to create a national discussion about the controversial genocide that occurred in our country.

• http://youtu.be/xmYu-Wppp3c

Jackie Robinson & PeeWee Reese in 42

Models of Empathy

Wab Kinew

Historical Origin of Empathy

"Empathy (Einfühlung) has a long history in aesthetics, psychology and psychoanalysis, and plays a greater role in Freud's thinking than readers of the

Standard Edition realise. Coined by Robert Vischer in 1873, Einfühlung originally designates the projection of human feeling on to the natural world. For a quarter of

a century the term remains at the centre of psychological aesthetics before Theodor Lipps, a philosopher admired by Freud for 40 years, transfers it to psychology in an attempt to explain how we discover that other people have selves. Freud's conception of Einfühlung, first developed in 'Jokes and their

Relation to the Unconscious' (1905), remains heavily intellectual throughout his career; he views it as the process that allows us to understand others by putting

ourselves in their place. Although the Standard Edition never translates Einfühlung as 'empathy' in a clinical context, Freud regards it as essential for establishing the rapport between patient and analyst that makes interpretation possible. This paper traces the history of Einfühlung from aesthetics and psychology to Freud and his

contemporaries."

REFERENCES▪ A quote by Walt Whitman. (n.d.). Retrieved November 18, 2014, from

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/225330-i-do-not-ask-the-wounded-person-how-he-feels

▪ http://www.cbc.ca/8thfire/2011/12/wab-kinew-1.html

▪ http://modernservantleader.com/servant-leadership/nelson-mandela-quotes/

▪ Blasco, P. G., & Moreto, G. (2012). Teaching empathy through movies: Reaching learners' affective domain in medical education.Journal of Education and Learning, 1(1), 22-34. Retrieved November 20, 2014, from http://0-search.proquest.com.aupac.lib.athabascau.ca/docview/1045583805?accountid=8408

▪ Schonert-Reichl, K. A., Smith, V., Zaidman-Zait, A., & Hertzman, C. (2012). Promoting children’s prosocial behaviours in school: Impact of the “Roots of Empathy” program on the social and emotional competence of school-aged children. School Mental Health 4(1), 1-12. Retrieved November 19, 2014, from http://cemh.lbpsb.qc.ca/professionals/RootsofEmpathy.pdf

▪ https://www.google.ca/search?q=jackie+robinson&espv=2&biw=1366&bih=667&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=6NRuVL_0F4ryigKggoHgCA&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ#tbm=isch&q=jackie%20robinson%20quotes&revid=1752898240&imgdii=_

▪ Pigman, G.W. "Freud and the history of empathy," International Journal of Psycho-Analysis 76 (1995). Retrieved from http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1995-36798-001 on November 19, 2014.

REFERENCES

▪ http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/empathy

▪ http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/self+knowledge?show=0&t=1416551744