I am interested in exploring the ethics and skills that should comprise a theory of love that can help us address all types of lovelessness and violence. I keep coming back to empathy as perhaps the most central skill for all of us. It was a skill I learnt about in my first year of undergraduate study as a social worker - then as now it was presented as a core communication skill in helping others. The word love wasn’t mentioned alongside empathy back then but I do think it is not possible to express love in safe and respectful ways without the skill of empathy. At the same time empathy is not sufficient on its own to respond to complexities such as interpersonal violence, trauma and crisis. But without it we may be missing the opportunity to value the person and our relationship with them, and be rushing to give advice or to pass judgements, or control and inadvertently offend and harm the other person.
This podcast introduces empathy, suggests when to use it and not to use it, and outlines what makes it hard and what makes it easy to empathise. I then extend on the idea of empathy to encompass Jan Fook’s (1993) idea of social empathy. The issue of empathy deficit is identified (Bradley Nelson, 2019) and the vision of an Empathy Charter is outlined (Bazalgette, 2017).
Email me on dyann@dyannross.com if you would like any of the cited authors’ details.
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Thank you and do let me know what you think!
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