Empathy training

[bernard widlake]

Clear DayOf course Yallom in Practice of Group Psychotherapy talks about The Schizoid Patient on p.382 of the 1975 edition. If Jim does not have this I may be able to copy it for him and send it via email. Yallom speaks of the need for great patience and of the reward of the effort. Training in an "as if" kind of way.
Hope this is some help.
Best wishes, Bernard.
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Adam Blatner 
  To: list at grouptalkweb.org 
  Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2007 5:24 PM
  Subject: Empathy training


  Dear Grouptalk Colleagues, I received an email from  Jim Catlin (   jcatlin at discover-net.net  ) who writes: I'm a psychotherapist from Wisconsin and I am seeing an Asian gentleman (from a male-dominant culture) on an outpatient basis who committed a horrific crime almost 10 years ago.  He was found not guilty by reason of mental defect and was recently released from one of our state mental institutions.  Psychiatrists and other mental health professionals who have worked w/him all the way back to his crime believe that he has little or no capacity for empathy; he's informally diagnosed with Narc Pers Dis.  One of the goals I have set for myself (and him) is to find ways to "teach" him empathy, to have him behave in empathic ways, and ultimately become empathic himself, to whatever degree we can get to. I read your online article on teaching empathy and it has given me some solid basic ideas/approaches I can use use w/him, plus several areas I can further research for materials/resources.  Do you know of any other curricula, tools, or resources that exist for teaching adults to become empathic?  I'm wondering if anyone has put together a sort of treatment curriculum (like with sex offender programs) that is effective in the empathy-building area.  tks, Jim  
           ... and Jim gave me permission to forward this to y'all... to write him if you have ideas. 


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