Empathy Circles A Blended Empathy Practice

Empathy Circles are a hands on, walking the talk, empathy practice. The circles are based in science from many different disciplines such as psychology, neuroscience, biology, philosophy and arts (i.e. dance and literature). When developing the empathy circles, we did not want to get fussy over the term while getting distracted from the real important outcomes of the volumes of books, scientific studies and practices developed. We therefore decided to take a blended approach to empathy and started to actually practice in the empathy circles what all these different disciplines had to say about it. We blended science and practice to both decipher what empathy looks and feels like as well as figure out what works and what does not work in practice. Combining the different disciplines lead us to propose five phases of empathy: Self-empathy, mirrored empathy, reflective empathy, imaginative empathy and empathic creativity or -action. At the core of these five phases of empathy are different levels of synchronicity between two or more people.Empathy Circles are meant to be a hands-on method in supporting your practice.