WORKSHOP: 2016-04-16 INTRO HCD
Interviewer: Edwin
Interviewee: Gerti
Text below:
E: What do you think about training people in empathy?
G: Training in empathy is definitely possible but for some people it will take time to learn it. It can be frustrating for some people.
E: How did you become interested in empathy?
G: I didn’t grow up with much empathy. I wonder if it is a cultural things. I experience german culture as less empathic culture than America. I think I only learned it by being in long-term therapy and being a therapist.
W
E: What there a n aha moment?
G: No it was a slow process. In therapy there was an aha moment where I can just be myself. It was gradual. There wasn’t just one.
E:Is there one experience where it stands out?
G: When I said to my therapists you are doing something that is throwing me off and I need something different. When the person I was talking about was the person I was talking to and they could dot it, that was a game changer.
G: What I am grappling with now is that I expect too much empathy. Because I have learned to be so empathetic. So even when people attack me I can do and I expect them to do it for me. So my next step is that not everyone can or even wants to do it.
G: I don’t want to pass on that expectation that other people should empathize.
E: Why do you shrug that off.
G: Not everybody will give you what you want.
E: Why don’t you want to be wondering about it or be hurt by it.
G: My process it so self-protect rather than be vulnerable.
G: I am learning there is a balance. There is a too vulnerable in this world.
I think you
G: Need to be able to oscillate. My goal is to be as empathetic as I can, but I also think you need to self protect.
G: For me to be able to say no, I don’t have it, gives other people permission to say no.