Standard empathy gets stretched to its LIMIT in the face of confronting physical and moral trauma, succumbing to compassion fatigue, burn out, and empathic distress. Standard empathy is challenged to deal with empathic distress, and standard empathy sometimes does not succeed in getting across the abyss of empathic distress to reestablish wholeness, emotional equilibrium, and integriy. To get across this abyss, Radical Empathy is required. Radical empathy deploys the same four aspects of receptivity, understanding, interpretation, and responsiveness that standard empathy uses but with this difference: radical empathy has the additional feature that it is committed to empathizing in the face of empathic distress. This commitment of radical emapthy shows up as empathic responsiveness - finding a form of words that recognizes the survivor's humanity. This encounter between radical empathy and the survivor enables the survivor to gain back her or his power form the overwhelming circumstances that have diminished the survivor's agencu. Radical empathy enables agency, choice, and decision making in the face of overwhelming circumstances. The chances of success are expanded by telling a story, providing a powerful narrative, that expresses the humanity of the other person. Find out how radical empathy makes a profound difference in building a bridge across the abyss of empathic distress in this engaging episode!

[image art credit: Prometheus by Gustave Moreau (wikimedia commons)]