The Neuroscience of Empathy, Compassion, and Self-Compassion

A comprehensive, contemporary reference on the neuroscience behind the three related domains of empathy, compassion and self-compassion

Larry Charles Stevens (Edited by), C. Chad Woodruff (Edited by)

9780128098370

Paperback / softback, published 21 June 2018

353 pages
22.9 x 15.1 x 2.3 cm, 0.66 kg

The Neuroscience of Empathy, Compassion, and Self-Compassion provides contemporary perspectives on the three related domains of empathy, compassion and self-compassion (ECS). It informs current research, stimulates further research endeavors, and encourages continued and creative philosophical and scientific inquiry into the critical societal constructs of ECS. Examining the growing number of electrocortical (EEG Power Spectral, Coherence, Evoked Potential, etc.) studies and the sizeable body of exciting neuroendocrine research (e.g., oxytocin, dopamine, etc.) that have accumulated over decades, this reference is a unique and comprehensive approach to empathy, compassion and self-compassion.

1. What Is This Feeling That I Have for Myself and for Others? Contemporary Perspectives on Empathy, Compassion, and Self-Compassion, and Their Absence 2. The Brain That Makes Us Concerned for Others: Toward a Neuroscience of Empathy 3. The Brain that Longs to Help Others: The Current Neuroscience of Compassion 4. The Brain That Longs to Help Itself: The Current Neuroscience of Self-Compassion 5. Sometimes I Get So Mad I Could …: The Neuroscience of Cruelty 6. Reflections of Others and of Self: The Mirror Neuron System’s Relationship to Empathy 7. Why does it feel so good to care for others, but only sometimes for myself? 8. Can We Change Our Mind About Caring for Others? The Neuroscience of Systematic Compassion Training 9. Compassion Training from an Early Buddhist Perspective: The Neurological Concomitants of the Brahmaviharas 10. The Language and Structure of Social Cognition: An Integrative Process of Becoming the Other 11. Where Caring for Self and Others’ Lives in the Brain, and How it can be Enhanced, and Diminished: Observations on the Neuroscience on Empathy, Compassion, and Self-Compassion

Subject Areas: Physiological & neuro-psychology, biopsychology [JMM]