Lynne CameronPainting and empathy research
Someone commented that I haven’t written much here about my paintings, or shown many, even though last year’s visit to Kenya pushed me into a particularly productive phase of art making. I have been painting and drawing for many years. I started late as, like many pupils at the time of grammar schools, I was … Read more
Affordances – the key to creativity?
As I went through the photos that we took in northern Kenya to work on the idea of fences, I came across this one of an acacia tree and thought that it brilliantly illustrates the idea of “affordances”. It’s appropriate too because affordances became an important way of understanding the peace building processes we observed … Read more
Living with Uncertainty: Summary of findings
The project characterized empathy as activity that tries to understand the feeling and thinking of another person from their perspective. The research produced a five-level, dynamic model of empathy that can be applied to any situation in which people connect with each other. The model and method of analyzing empathy was tested in situations of … Read more
New place, new issues
Now the big research project has finished, we have moved on to what funders call “knowledge exchange” – sharing findings with people in the ‘real world’ and working out how it interacts with their issues. I am continuing to work with the NGO Responding to Conflict (brilliant people, superb work). The KE project has two … Read more
I have added The Challenge of Empathy as a pdf that can be downloaded, e.g. to spark interest in empathy or as a discussion starter. A summary of project findings and questions raised by them, for each of us to consider.
The challenge of empathy: Blocking and lumping
Empathy is stopped by the barriers we put in place between us and other people. Empathy is stopped when we don’t see other people as individuals but as a group, lumped together. We are social beings and need the pleasures, comfort, and security of being in a group. The problem comes when we define ourselves … Read more
The challenge of empathy: Reducing distance
The project found 3 key ways of stopping empathy: distancing the other person, blocking them lumping them as a group. This post explores how we might reduce “distancing” through some questions and possibilities for action prompted by the research. Empathy is stopped when we find reasons not to get too close to other people, when … Read more
Going for the good
Empathic understanding has four key characteristics: the Other is seen as a complex individual and that’s ok – differences are accepted the Other is entitled to full human rights strength and strategies to do the emotional work involved in 1-3. I have started a new project that takes my empathy project into work with professionals … Read more
Empathy and Christmas shopping
Christmas shopping is making me happy. Not only are the shops full of inviting things, but they have reduced their prices so that I can buy more expensive gifts than budgeted for. Often I come back from Christmas shopping with things for myself – today, for example, I found glittery card and stick-on stars that … Read more
a pertinent pinch of salt?
Whenever I present my work on empathy and try to describe what neuroscience is telling us about the brain circuits involved, I feel slightly uneasy. Surely – the back of my mind asks, even as I speak – it can’t be this simple? Today I came across a review of a new book in the Guardian … Read more
