I believe that education is the fundamental method of social progress and reform.― John Dewey As we reflect on our world today, we sense and see dramatic, interdependent global challenges—racial, political, economic, and ecological—all around us. This awareness leads many of us to feel an immediate need for action aimed at broad and deep systemic …
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Enactive Compassion
Over the years, I’ve been increasingly aware of what one could call a deficit of compassion in medical care, and have observed the effects not only on patients but also on clinicians, and even on the institutions in which clinicians serve. I felt moved to find a better way to train clinicians in compassion, and …
The Science of Compassion
Who am I to study compassion? I am a compassion scientist, which feels a little like choosing to ingest a tiny bit of poison and its antidote every workday. When I stare at a blank page to write about the science of compassion, I feel paralyzed by the presumptuousness of the endeavor and the reminder …
The End of Othering: Cultivating Just, Equitable Communities
Recent generations of my family have had many opportunities to practice working with difficulty. Born in a still-segregated North Carolina town, I experienced the direct disadvantages of being racialized Black in the southern United States, including a range of childhood traumas. These negative outcomes too often follow hard upon systematic impoverishment, deprivation of educational opportunities, …
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Nurturing a Relational Mindset
When I was a junior in college, I signed up for a course on meditation and developmental psychology. On the first day of class, the professor asked each student to write on a notecard, “the voice in your head that you wish you didn’t have to listen to throughout the day.” I felt apprehensive. I …
