The Power of Empathy: A Practical Guide to Creating Intimacy, Self-Understanding,and Lasting Love - Softcover

Ciaramicoli, Arthur; Ketcham, Katherine

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0452282284 ISBN 13: 9780452282285

Publisher: Plume, 2001

Synopsis

A practical and inspiring guide to making empathy a vital part of your everyday life explains why it is crucial to finding love, being an active listener, creating lasting intimacy, how it differs from sympathy, ten steps to avoid the pitfalls of negative empathy, and how it can rebuild a relationship, trust, and faith. Reprint.

About this title

About the Author

Arthur Ciaramicoli, Ed.D., Ph.D., is the Chief Psychologist and Director of Alternative Medicine Services, MetroWest Wellness Center, an AMA affiliate medical center in Framingham, MA; and Instructor of Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. He is the author of Treatment of Abuse and Addiction: A Holistic Approach.

Katherine Ketcham is the author of many books, including Chinese Medicine for Maximum Immunity and The Five Elements of Self-Healing.

From Publishers Weekly

In an engaging work that is part guidebook and part heartfelt meditation, Ciaramicoli, a practicing psychologist who rejects the pervasive medical practice of labeling and medicating human anguish, contends that it is empathy--not fear, not sympathy, not drugs--that holds the key to mental health. Arguing that the "capacity to understand and respond to the unique experiences of another" is not only ubiquitous in relationships but is actually "an innate force, part of our biological inheritance" that is necessary for survival, he ponders empathy's many faces (including its "dark side") in the first half of the book. In the second half, he describes, and coaches readers on practicing the eight expressions of empathy: honesty, humility, acceptance, tolerance, gratitude, faith, hope and forgiveness. Inspired, in part, by his brother's suicide 26 years ago (which he believes was caused partly by a failure of empathy), Ciaramicoli vigorously examines empathy's place in an astonishing array of everyday situations--in sexual intimacy and friendly banter, in the natural world and the arena of sales and advertising--as a force of evil and a force of good. In the end, Ciaramicoli's meticulous exploration of the "invisible connections" of true empathy illuminates how the reader can use this long-misunderstood social skill to live a more safe and fulfilled life. Agent, Jane Dystel. 10-city author tour. (Apr.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Plume
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0452282284
• ISBN 13: 9780452282285
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288