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Brené Brown on Empathy

RSA · Youtube · 2 HN points · 6 HN comments
HN Theater has aggregated all Hacker News stories and comments that mention RSA's video "Brené Brown on Empathy".
Youtube Summary
What is the best way to ease someone's pain and suffering? In this beautifully animated RSA Short, Dr Brené Brown reminds us that we can only create a genuine empathic connection if we are brave enough to really get in touch with our own fragilities.

Voice: Dr Brené Brown
Animation: Katy Davis (AKA Gobblynne) www.gobblynne.com
Production and Editing: Al Francis-Sears and Abi Stephenson

Watch Dr Brené Brown's full talk 'The Power of Vulnerability' here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXSjc-pbXk4

Dr Brené Brown is a research professor and best-selling author of "Daring Greatly: How the Courage to be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent and Lead" (Penguin Portfolio, 2013).
She has spent the past decade studying vulnerability, courage, worthiness, and shame.

Find out more about the RSA: http://www.thersa.org
Follow the RSA on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/thersaorg
Like the RSA on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/thersaorg
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Hacker News Stories and Comments

All the comments and stories posted to Hacker News that reference this video.
Dec 02, 2020 · 2 points, 0 comments · submitted by anonymous18391
My employer had me go through training that had this video as part of the curriculum. Though I already understood the ideas, the video was still useful for me. It's less than 3 minutes long.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Evwgu369Jw

In short, sometimes people need connection to others; problem-solving mode isn't always the most useful path.

Waterluvian
My wife once said to me, "I don't need an engineer I need my husband." And it clicked. She doesn't want a fix. She just wants a hand to hold and for me to hear her frustrations.
mettamage
It’s not about the nail.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-4EDhdAHrOg

yobert
I can tell already that I do this and I should stop. My wife just hasn't said it yet.

I just always default to problem solving....

DrAwdeOccarim
It's hard, but you'll start seeing it in more people than just your wife. And once you become the person who sometimes knows to just listen instead of immediately trying to fix, people will like you more.
The problem is not that the comparison is valid or invalid, but that someone supporting you shouldn't be making it about them.

Brené Brown on Empathy - The RSA https://youtube.com/watch?v=1Evwgu369Jw

harimau777
Couldn't trying to find common experience be a useful/valid way to express empathy?
Apr 21, 2018 · classics2 on What is empathy?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1Evwgu369Jw
ptrincr
Thanks for sharing, powerful stuff. Reminded me of the film "Waking Life" a little.
pzone
Brene Brown has some pretty great books as well.
pks016
Can you suggest any book ?
cko
I used to think I had empathy. I mean, when I see someone being taken advantage of, I tear up immediately. Until one day my mentor straight up told me “you have no empathy.”

Which didn’t really bother me, since I’m pretty sure I’m not a sociopath. (Though that probably wouldn’t bother me either, by definition.)

Watching that video made me realize that what I usually feel is sympathy. I think I’ve been so fortunate (or complacent) that I can’t really say to someone “I’ve been there. I know how it feels.” I mean I have been sad and depressed and lonely, don’t get me wrong, but overall I’m like “holy shit why am I so lucky?”

Feelings are icky. If a close friend suffers a loss, I just want to do something practical. Help them move furniture, or babysit their kid or something. I don’t want to “get down to their level.”

So yeah. No empathy here.

jehlakj
I believe that nobody can “have” empathy. Putting yourself in someone else’s shoes is still you who’s in their shoes. It’s just impossible to share the same emotions as someone if you’ve lived a different life, different experiences. When we see a teen yelling, “You don’t understand!”, we really don’t understand even when we were teens ourselves. I’m not a huge fan of the word because I think the first step to true connection is to admit that you in fact do not understand, but you’re there for them. Like the video suggests (which in my opinion isn’t really talking about empathy).
leetcrew
i do agree with you in the broad strokes, but there is some thing called "empathy" that some people simply do not have. it can still be a useful word.
johnchristopher
The field of communication and information (in humanities) has covered a lot of ground about that. Of course we can't inject our thoughts directly into someone else's brain and vice-versa.

If two things have the same properties, there's truly only one thing.

creep
That's empathy. Empathy is a type of understanding, on any level. Maybe you have not experienced directly what is causing another person's emotional reaction, but you experience their emotional reaction.

Sympathy is more along the lines of caring about someone enough that you care they are in pain. If you don't feel that pain, if you aren't "crying with them", but instead are a shoulder to cry on, that's sympathy.

Both are very related and work together, depending on how close another person is to you.

johnchristopher
I'd say you have more empathy than compassion. I think it's a good thing. I myself have much more compassion than empathy and I am working on sorting things out to be more empathic than compassionate.
jm__87
It sounds like maybe you do have empathy? Experiencing some level of suffering when you witness someone else's suffering would be empathy. Sociopaths do not experience this. From my understanding, the part of the brain that processes pain and fear is much smaller or nonexistent in sociopaths, so they couldn't feel bad even if they wanted to.

There is another thing called compassion which is generally wishing others to be well and giving people a break. Most people don't have much compassion as it somewhat goes against the human instinct to compete with others and do what is best for yourself. That being said, compassion can be directly developed through loving-kindness meditation, if you're motivated to become more compassionate. I personally also find that developing an understanding of evolutionary psychology and doing mindfulness meditation can also lead to more compassion as it leads to more understanding of how we are all, for the overwhelming majority of our conscious lives where we are not being mindful, slaves to whatever thoughts and feelings happen to be arising at any given moment. Some of us are lucky and don't experience much in the way of negative feelings or thoughts, some of us aren't so lucky. Either way, realizing that a lot of life comes down to the luck of the draw is a powerful realization that can lead to more compassion. This i feel is another reason why some of us lack compassion - if we're successful, we have some understanding of what set of actions we did that lead us to be successful. But no one ever sits there and thinks about all the things that didn't happen to them that would have lead to a worse outcome (of which there are infinitely many), so when we see another person who isn't succeeding we may just assume they are lazy or don't care without actually bothering to understand what is holding them back.

I'm unsure how this anecdote proves anything about a correlation between empathy and wealth.

Whether you are rich or poor, you can have empathy. If you're interested in empathy, I suggest you watch this brenee brown video. The video may seem anecdotal but she has done a lot of research about shame and vulnerability and... having read her books, money is not something that comes up in the research.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Evwgu369Jw

Oct 14, 2014 · justanotherta on On Getting Wasted
Yes, there are certainly many different types of "madness". The "layer of abstraction" that the specific variety of madness imparts on the holder is their own reality. The hypothetical accepted objective true reality is irrelevant to them. While this true reality is the standard with which to measure the conduct of people's behavior, if you are to preserve the emotional well being of the suffer of madness it would be helpful to communicate and act in a way which is consistent with their own subjective reality. By delving into their madness you can understand their behavior and actions more than understanding it from an outside perspective. If the goal is to simply enforce external standards this empathy is a waste of resources. But if preserving their emotional well being is a concern empathy can be a useful tool to both understand their perspective and guide you in your interactions with the sufferer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Evwgu369Jw

At the very least I think it would have been nice if the hoarder in this story was taken away to alternate accommodations for the duration of the clean up. Terrible that she had to witness the event.

Most of what I read is related to startups or economics, but for the short list of change-my-life books:

This year I read a lot about what you might loosely call the Paleo movement / anti-carbs and sugar movement. The New Evolution Diet, The Primal Blueprint, books by Gary Taubes, and so on. I think this is going to change how I eat and exercise forever.

The Gift of Imperfection and other works by Brené Brown. Lately this is being promoted by Oprah, which isn't usually a good sign. I think it stands apart because it's not theory or poetry; it's based on some solid research on what people living more productive and satisfying lives are actually doing. If nothing else, her books have made me a better friend when my friends are in pain. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Evwgu369Jw

Evgeny
Sounds like a book I will enjoy, that goes now on my reading list for 2014!
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