John Carver Show - Power of Empathy (Helen Reiss)

Empathy is doing something for someone and not just feeling sorry for them.  Empathy as about getting our needs responded to.  Ms. Reiss says, "Empathy is like, getting underneath the skin of another person, to merge temporarily with their experience, then getting out, to reflect on the experience.  Empathy can be taught, although a certain endowment may be inborn, research shows that it is a mutable trait. Our study demonstrated that empathy could be increased significantly in the training group and it decreased significantly in the control group."

Eye Contact/Gaze

Muscular Facial Expression

Posture (power image of connection)

Assets (expressed emotions)

Tone of Voice

Hearing the whole person (understand the context in how other people live)

Your Response 

Our brain is hard wired for empathy.  Normal people reflect the feelings of others.  We have an internal experience of what happens to others.  

To get more info on Helen Reiss check out:

http://cultureofempathy.com/references/Experts/Others/Helen-Riess.htm

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/helen-riess-md/

http://empathetics.com/