The Power of Empathy: A Practical Guide to Creating Intimacy, Self-understanding, and Lasting Love in Your Life - Hardcover

Ciaramicoli, Arthur; Ketcham, Katherine

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0525945113 ISBN 13: 9780525945116

Publisher: Dutton Adult, 2000

Synopsis

Arguing that empathy is the driving force behind love, the author shows readers how to bring this all-important trait to the fore in relationships.

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 has coauthored twelve books, seven on the subject of drugs, addiction, and recovery. Her books have sold more than 1.3 million copies.

Reviews

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.

Edition details

• Publisher: Dutton Adult
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0525945113
• ISBN 13: 9780525945116
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288