The Neuroscience of Empathy, Compassion, and Self-Compassion

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.

Provides perspectives on empathy, compassion and self-compassion (ECS), including discussions of cruelty, torture, killings, homicides, suicides, terrorism and other examples of empathy/compassion erosionAddresses autonomic nervous system (vagal) reflections of ECSDiscusses recent findings and understanding of ECS from mirror neuron researchCovers neuroendocrine manifestations of ECS and self-compassion and the neuroendocrine enhancementExamines the neuroscience research on the enhancement of ECSIncludes directed-meditations (mindfulness, mantra, Metta, etc.) and their effects on ECS and the brain

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 Brahmavihāras 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