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  • Thank you. It''s really an honour to be here with you today.

  • Wonderful. So, we're going to use this next hour and a half to really dive

  • deeply into the notions of empathy and resilience and look at how the Roots of

  • Empathy program may be doing a very profound service, not only for the kids

  • who are fortunate enough to be in the program, but for the communities that

  • those children will either directly be a part of or even indirectly influence. So,

  • what I'd like to do is just to begin with this photograph here. Can everyone

  • see it? Yeah, so this is a photograph taken clearly at a day of Roots of

  • Empathy...and how many of you have actually had the opportunity to be at a

  • Roots of Empathy classroom experience? Raise your hand. So it's, okay, so it's

  • about three-quarters of us. Okay so, we had the opportunity yesterday to go to a

  • school here in Toronto. Did I say the right? Is it Torono? (Audience Lauging) So Toronto, I think is

  • how you say it...and, and, and to be in the classroom just like this actually where

  • you see this incredible moment of the children in the classroom, who are

  • getting to know this baby and the mom as this baby grows for the first year of

  • life. So, if you just look at the photo you'll think, oh that's really cute...

  • and that's fine, but we're going to say beyond cute, there's profound things that

  • are happening here, not just in this moment, but for all the moments that will

  • unfold in these children's lives. So, I'd like to just take that apart piece by

  • piece and as we go through why this experience

  • is so profound, what I'd like to do is just give you a framework on where this

  • is coming from. So, you heard in the bio, you know I'm a

  • Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, but actually the world I work in is a field

  • called Interpersonal Neurobiology...and that's a

  • term that I had to make up because what I was

  • doing back in the late 80s and early 90s didn't have a name and it was basically

  • saying this -- if you combined all the fields of science together...so, if you

  • took anthropology (studying culture), and sociology (studying our interaction in

  • groups), and linguistics (for how we use language to speak to each other), and

  • psychology (for studies of memory and attention and behavior), and biology

  • (including medicine and psychiatry, where you study the functions of the body and what

  • gives rise to life), and chemistry (how molecules interact with each other)...I'm

  • trained as a biochemist...or getting down to physics even (how properties of the

  • universe govern how things happen), and then even get to another level,

  • mathematics. What would happen if you took everything from math to

  • anthropology and saw the common ground among all those fields? So, that was an

  • effort that I became obsessed with in the beginning of the decade of the brain,

  • the early 90s, because people were saying something that Hippocrates had said

  • since 2,500 years ago that the mind is basically only coming from your head,

  • that the mind was just brain activity... and then William James, the grandfather

  • of modern psychology, reaffirmed that in 1890 in a book called The Principles of

  • Psychology...but for me as a trained psychotherapist, it just seemed to be

  • only part of a much bigger picture and in my field, a branch of medicine --

  • psychiatry, people were being reduced to bags of chemicals and being told, "You are

  • a depressive", or, "You are a schizophrenic"... and the attitude among many of my

  • colleagues was that these names that were being given were telling the whole

  • story...and of course there were a number of things that pushed psychiatry in that

  • direction, the idea to have this nomenclature called the Diagnostic and

  • Statistical Manual and things like that or insurance companies saying, "Yeah, we

  • only take people who are going to be treated for brief

  • as of time on these medications", or the medication industry, or even the identity

  • crisis that my field in psychiatry had, which was how are we really different

  • from anybody else, you know? So, we prescribe medication. So, there were lots

  • of forces at work at the decade of the brain that fit with the science that

  • basically said mind is a synonym for brain activity. So, part of why I give you that

  • background is because you can hear a lot of conviction by really smart people,

  • scientists, that actually may not correlate with its accuracy. So, is mind

  • just the activity of the brain? Is it just a word meaning the same thing? So, I

  • brought all these scientists together from all these fields I'm speaking about

  • and we tried to ask the question what is a relationship between the mind and the

  • brain and that's a whole other long story, but what I'm about to tell you

  • about Roots of Empathy comes from this effort beginning in the early 90s that

  • ultimately we called interpersonal neurobiology, which is to say, what

  • happens in the betweenness?...like right here...what's happening in the betweenness,

  • the inter?...and what's happening with the within this, the personal?...and then how

  • can we understand that scientifically? So, I just use the term neurobiology but the

  • idea is that there's something much more than just something going on the brain.

  • The brain is really important, but to limit it, to limit the mind and

  • mental life to just the brain is actually, I think, scientifically

  • inaccurate, even though it's been around for 2,500 years, even though it's the

  • 90, over 90 percent of academics will say that to you...and maybe some of you are

  • from academics and want to jump up and say, "You're reversing science!"...or

  • something like that...but I think what has hampered science is by equating mind

  • with brain. So, in interpersonal neurobiology we don't do that. So, you can

  • say, you know, if you look at the bottom of this thing, Roots of Empathy...it's

  • mission is to, "...build caring, peaceful and civil societies". So, if you're looking at

  • societies, you're going to look at culture, right?

  • So, you need to understand anthropology and sociology, and that the mind is

  • coming from the betweenness as much as the within this, to understand that part

  • of the sentence, through the development... so, we have to understand development,

  • which is what we'll talk about today... through development. So, let me move this

  • back without breaking it so you can see over there. So right now, I'm thinking

  • about the mental experience of you guys on that table and you're not seeing the

  • photograph. So, I'm going to try to move it but there are wires. Can you see it

  • now? Okay, but that probably looks terrible for everyone else so...my

  • daughter would say, "You should have made it aesthetically pleasing". Okay

  • so, through the development, so we need to understand that, of this word empathy,

  • right?...and empathy is an interesting word. So, even just in terms of linguistics, we

  • have to be very careful the words we use because some of you may know that

  • empathy is getting a bad rap in a number of fields in the last two to

  • three years. Anyone heard these anti- empathy things? So, an anti-empathy person

  • sitting in this room would go, "Oh God, they are really doing a bad thing"...or

  • like I wrote a book for teenagers called Brainstorm, where I was encouraging the

  • development of empathy and one of my reviewers wrote, "You're really not up on

  • the current science. Empathy has been proven to be bad, so you're encouraging a

  • bad thing". Literally that was a note. So I wrote back to the reviewer and I said,

  • "Please tell me more about your feelings about it being a bad thing"...and she

  • wrote, "You're obviously not aware of the work of Tania Singer", who's a

  • neurobiology researcher in Germany. So I said, "Actually I'm very aware of her work

  • but thank you for your input". So, then a few months later, actually a few years

  • later, I was teaching in Berlin and Tania Singer was one of the people on the

  • stage with me. So I said, "Tanya, I need to get this straight from you...people are

  • quoting you, telling me, that when I encourage empathy just like Roots of

  • Empathy encourages it, that I'm doing a bad thing". So, I'm going to just leave

  • that in the room. We're going to come back to what Tania said because it won't

  • make any sense until I explain everything else, but you'll see what she said...

  • and in children and adults. So, this is the idea that we're going to explore

  • from an interpersonal neurobiology point of view. So to do that can get a little

  • weird, so luckily the Mary's have given you safety belts to put on your chairs

  • because we're going to actually explore a lot of stuff that is stuff that you

  • often don't hear, but it's really worth taking the ride to see, I think the

  • bigger picture of things. So, if you're taking notes, I'm going to try to

  • highlight the take-home points. If you don't want to take notes, much of this

  • stuff is in these various books that you heard about. Mind would be a good place

  • to see the wild ride of it, Pocket Guide to Interpersonal Neurobiology would get the

  • the fundamental points, a book called Mindsight, you'd see some of the elements and

  • Brainstorm is the book for adolescents to develop empathy. So there's a lot

  • written on it, we have all sorts of online training and stuff like that. So,

  • there's lots of stuff. This is going to be like a highlights time, but it goes

  • like this...if you say these children in Roots of Empathy, the kids in the

  • classroom are having an experience, it's going to change them right? If you just

  • take that statement that this intervention, Roots of Empathy, for a

  • child who gets to experience it, is going to alter their development. Just take

  • that basic statement. Would everyone agree that, that's why it's being done,

  • right? Anyone would...who agrees with that, that? That sounds about right. Okay, half the

  • people. Okay, very good...alright so, I've got to convince the other half. An

  • intervention, the reason to do it, is it influences somebody in some way. So, the

  • first thing we have to ask is -- how does that happen? How does an experience...

  • bless you, bless you, let's have a bless you for everyone who is going to

  • sneeze...bless you...so how does that happen that this young boy, having this

  • experience over the year, is going to be different if you study the outcomes

  • that he'd be different or that baby...what's your baby's name? Jude? So Jude is

  • going to have a certain kind of experience. I don't put pressure on you,

  • based on what her mom does with her...his okay, his...I was thinking of Hey Jude but

  • this is a different Jude...so based on what his mom is going to do, right? So, we

  • have an actual example, a photograph example, and then the idea of Roots of

  • Empathy...so what actually is happening there, that this child gets to spend time

  • in a roots of empathy program where Jude is interacting with his mom, like he's doing

  • right now? What's actually happening there? It's a connection, it's a

  • connection, exactly. What is...if you were a Martian dropping down from Mars, coming

  • to this planet right, and you have your own Martian thing that you do but you're

  • just a careful observer called a scientist...that's what a scientist is

  • observing, right?...and you're observing this happening here or observing Jude

  • with his mom...what would you actually be observing? What is it that's happening? So,

  • there's eye contact, right, you can see this baby,

  • let's call him Jude. Baby Jude here, is looking right into the eyes of this

  • student, right? So there's eye contact and what is eye contact at its...if you're a

  • Martian and you, you don't have words like eye contact, what, what would you

  • actually be observing? What's that? It's a communication, exactly, but you don't have

  • a word called communication...but you'd be observing communication and what is this

  • eye contact communication made of? What's that? Emotion. So you don't have a word

  • for emotion, you know so, but you, but we could say it's emotion because we

  • experience it from the inside out...but if you were a Martian watching this and you

  • didn't have a word for emotion what would you actually see? Now this is not an easy

  • exercise, but let me just say this - it's an essential exercise. So I'm trained as

  • an attachment researcher, so after I trained in psychiatry

  • I wanted to...and child psychiatry, I wanted to know, how does a healthy mind

  • develop? So, back in the late 80s I chose to get a National Institute of Mental

  • Health research fellowship to study attachment and even though all my

  • academic advisors said, "That's like the stupidest thing you could do for your

  • academic career", I said, "Why?", they said "Well, no pharmaceutical industry is going

  • to pay for you, you're not going to be able to get tenure because, you know, no

  • one's really interested in attachment. You want to study diseases", and all this

  • kind of stuff. I said, "Well, no one's talking about, first of all, what the mind

  • is, no one's even talking about a healthy mind and that's what I'm going to do". So,

  • you know they were trying to be helpful but it just showed you that the nature

  • of the thing. So, in attachment terms, you know, we might say, "Oh, this is the

  • development of some kind of exploration that's a part of the secure attachment

  • this baby has with his mom or Jude is developing a secure attachment", but even

  • that for me, with my attachment teachers, didn't feel like it was enough. What's

  • actually happening if you are a Martian, is you would be seeing, in this case, an

  • exchange of photons. I'm getting deep here, right? In terms of physics, you'd

  • basically be an exchange of energy that would be both light and sound...and this

  • becomes an extremely important place to start and I know it's weird, but it's

  • important to start there. It's an exchange of light and sound and

  • communication can be defined as the exchange of energy...and some energy has

  • symbolic (Dan speaking gibberish)...does not have symbolic value and some has symbolic

  • value like the term empathy is a symbol. So, it turns out that communication is

  • the sharing of energy; some forms of energy are symbolic and we call that

  • information and because it changes we have the word flow. So, there's a phrase

  • we're going to use over and over and over again, which is energy and

  • information flow. So you, as a Martian, would be seeing that unlike this kid

  • will be studying history or math, those are important...but unlike those things of

  • ideas and concepts, this child in this classroom is having an energy and

  • information flow exchange that is profoundly different

  • from most everything else he's going to have in that classroom...and when we were

  • in the classroom yesterday and we were asking...we observed a young class...what were

  • they third graders? What were they yesterday? Fourth graders in one class and then we

  • went to an eighth grade class and then interviewed those kids. The interviews

  • I'll tell you about were just profound to hear with these kids who had, had Roots of

  • Empathy many times...what they could say about the impact Roots of Empathy on

  • their development...but basically what they experienced with an immersion in

  • energy and information flow of a different kind.

  • Now the reason to start there is because you can say that experience is driving

  • energy and information flow through your nervous system, if you want to get brainy,

  • on us and in fact that's exactly what the brain is all about. It's about

  • patterns of energy flow that are called neural representations when they are

  • representing something, which they usually are. So the phrase energy and

  • information flow is something that happens not only between us, it's what

  • experience is and it's what relationships are, but it's happening inside the whole

  • body, especially the brain. So what we've just identified is a very important

  • take-home point, which is what the brain shares with relationships is energy and

  • information flow...and I know no one talks like this and my students say, "This is

  • weird, no one's talking like us and you're teaching us to be different". I

  • said, "Well, I'm just trying to get to the bottom the bottom of it all"...which is

  • that the brain and relationship share energy and information flow...one is

  • within, so it's the whole body not just what's in the head...the other is between...

  • but what I'm asking you to do to really dive deeply into what Roots of Empathy

  • does, is to consider that energy information flow is the shared common

  • ground. So we're going to talk about empathy in a moment and resilience, and

  • you'll hear from Michael...later today? Yeah, later today. You know, Michael, you

  • may not use the the terms that I'm using but we had a lovely talking dinner last

  • night about the overlap of the stuff. So okay, so the energy and

  • information flow that is being driven through this boy the student's brain, if

  • you wanted to go brain now on us, is a very different sort. He's got to pick up

  • nonverbal signals from that baby. There are seven nonverbal signals that we know

  • about...eye contact, facial expression...I'm going to have you repeat after me soon...

  • tone of voice, posture, gestures, timing, intensity...so, let's do that together, you

  • ready?...because these are good to memorize because they're often left out of school.

  • So let's do this together, ready? You point to your eyes, you say, "Eye contact".

  • You circle your face, you say, "Facial expression". Point to your voice box, you say,

  • "Tone of voice". Point to your posture and say, "Posture". Gesture and say, "Gesture".

  • Point to where your wristwatch is or might be and say, "Timing"...and then

  • make some fists and say, "Intensity". Now you do it. Are you ready?

  • Audience: Eye contact, facial expression, tone of voice, posture, gesture, timing, intensity.

  • Dan Siegel: Give yourself a hand, that's great. Those are often not the

  • overt curriculum, but in Roots of Empathy they are the starting place. Picking up

  • nonverbal signals is essential to know what the inner subjective experience is of

  • self or other. To know the inner life of self or other requires these nonverbal

  • signals and if you were a Martian dropping in to earth, you'd say, "Wow, they

  • really, they really either pay attention to Roots of Empathy, to nonverbal signals",

  • or, "Wow, here's a classroom without Roots of Empathy. They're not paying any

  • attention those things"...right?... because they're processed in very different

  • areas of the brain, actually. We're not going to worry about which areas right

  • at this moment, but just say that people who have parents who tuned in...so I'm an

  • attachment researcher, this is what we study...children who have parents, like Jude here,

  • whose mom is tuned into those nonverbal signals, are kids who develop a very

  • different set of outcomes...and I'll have you consider, they become resilient. These

  • nonverbal signals are the essence of how a baby communicates in the first year of

  • life, before linguistic symbols come in.

  • We don't have to worry about, oh, nonverbal signals are primarily on the right and

  • linguistic symbols are primarily on the left, that happens to be true...

  • ...we don't even need to worry about that. You can make a big deal out of that, but

  • in neuroscience, people don't like you make a big deal of it. They think it's

  • overstated and you don't even have to go there for this to be true, okay? It

  • happens to be a lot of evidence about its primarily right hemisphere and that

  • Jude's right hemisphere is developing in the first one to two years of life. It's

  • dominant activity and growth, but just put that aside because it's not what you

  • need to have to understand it. So, this boy in the classroom is having the

  • stimulation of areas of his brain that are taking in

  • on verbal signals and then the facilitator, I don't know where she is,

  • but the facilitator or the mom are then taking it to the next step. They're asking

  • the children the classroom to reflect, with words, on what the little baby Jude

  • here, what he's experiencing. So, yesterday the facilitator said, "Well what do you

  • think's going on?" "Oh, he feels really uncomfortable. He's a little nervous. He's

  • kind of a little scared"...and then a toy was presented, "Oh, he's kind of interested.

  • He's focusing his attention and he has the intention to actually play with that

  • ball". Right? So look at all those words I just mentioned...he's feeling this, that or

  • that so, feelings...his attention, where is attention is, and its intention. Now,

  • you may say, well this is so subtle. Who cares about this? Here's the reason to

  • think about it - when you look at evolution and understand different

  • forays into consciousness which is really, when we talk about creating a

  • peaceful and civil society, we're talking about transforming the consciousness of

  • humanity in communities...when you look at the signs of consciousness, this is, this

  • is not a separate topic, it's the topic but people usually don't put them

  • together, here's what we, here's what we know - two leading brain theories of

  • consciousness, one involves the idea that the more integrated this child's brain

  • is, the more capacity for consciousness this child will have...and we'll talk

  • about integration later on but it's basically how you're linking different

  • stuff together within the brain...so, there's the integrate information

  • theories of Tononi and all sorts of other people...Christof Koch,

  • Gerald Edelman...all sorts of folks have posited that, you know, about integration of

  • the brain is related to consciousness, that's fine. Another set of theories is

  • called the Social Brain Theory of Consciousness and it goes like this -

  • We, as mammals, are extremely social. We, as primates, have

  • very complex social hierarchies and we, as human beings, mammals who are primates,

  • and now Homo sapiens sapiens, the who know and know we know, we have this

  • very unusual history. You may not be aware but it's called alloparenting. Allo is

  • a-l-l-o means 'other'. Alloparenting means that Jude's attachment capacity,

  • attachment is a mammalian capacity to link with a care provider...usually in

  • mammals and almost all primates it's just with the mom, but not human beings.

  • With human beings, we raise children in communities, where we as human beings

  • evolved, where the caregiver is not just the mother...and what that means is that

  • this alloparenting that Sarah Hrdy, h-r-d-y, anthropologist writes beautifully about

  • in her book, Mothers and Others, that this isn't just oh some subtle little thing,

  • this may have been a profound influence on how we evolved. We evolved to be

  • collaborative. So what the social brain theory says is that what likely happened

  • is that first we had to know the mind of the other. I've got to know Mary's mind,

  • so I'm going to look at her nonverbal signals and I'm going to have to figure

  • out if I have a baby, am I going to give my baby to Mary or not? What's her

  • intention? Where's her attention going? What are her emotions? What is she

  • thinking? Right? So in this theory, the first step

  • in evolution is actually to know another mind. Now what's the evidence for that? The

  • evidence of that is if you look at the circuitry of knowing other minds and you

  • look at areas, if you'd like to know the names...I always am nervous about saying

  • these Greek names because people get all glassy-eyed, but if you

  • know the names, we're talking about the superior temporal sulcus and the

  • temporal parietal junction just as examples. These are areas of the brain

  • that whenever we try to know another person, they get super activated. They're

  • the areas for example that track what's called biological motion. You say, "Well,

  • why would the brain have an area that's tracking biological motion, motion of a

  • living thing, versus just a rock rolling down a hill?"

  • The reason is, living entities have intentions. They have, essentially, mental

  • states that drive their behavior and so you want to know what's the mental state

  • so you can actually predict the behavior. That's why we have these, these areas I'm

  • mentioning. Here's the key thing, if you get a stroke in those areas, your

  • consciousness of yourself is massively assaulted. So, there's an overlap between

  • quote, and I don't like using this word but, "self-awareness", and you'll see later

  • on why I don't like self-awareness, but this idea awareness of your inner life

  • and your awareness of another person's mind are essentially identical circuits.

  • That is a hugely important issue for Roots of Empathy, to understand why it's

  • such an important program. What I just said to summarize all that is, one of the

  • leading theories of consciousness is that we use the social circuits of our

  • brain for consciousness of the self. In other words, awareness of my own mind and

  • awareness of your mind are basically the same circuitry. Now, we've got to

  • differentiate them so I know it's Mary and not me and whatever...I means so,

  • that's important, but it starts from this same origin. So, when you have a kid in

  • a classroom or let's start with Jude here...let's say Jude's mother was not

  • interested in his internal state, didn't respond to these nonverbal signals, you

  • could posit then that developmentally Jude would have an experience where his

  • capacity for self-awareness...because the mother is stimulating those circuits of

  • connection didn't happen...his capacity for self-awareness is much lower and in

  • fact, if you look at my field, attachment research,

  • that's exactly what we found. Kids with avoidant attachment have this kind of

  • distant...I think it's about 20% of the population...and it's a distant way in which

  • parents are not tuned into their internal world and they don't have much

  • self-awareness. It's remarkable and we can study that in

  • something called the adult attachment interview later on, where you can

  • actually get a sense of how aware is a person of self or other...and there's a

  • very thin kind of depth of awareness. So this is likely why, because what's

  • happening here in Roots of Empathy or what's happening now between Jude and his mom,

  • is these moments of...we're calling them connection...but they're deep nonverbal

  • resonance if you will, allow you to have this experience which one of my patients

  • described a long time ago, and I can't think of a better phrase than what she

  • came up with...and I want to quote her I can see her right now because she's in

  • me you know...she said when she got better in therapy and had no idea why, "...because I

  • didn't do what my supervisors told me to do". So the end of therapy I said, "You know,

  • here at UCLA we have an exit interview to talk about what happened". She goes, "Oh,

  • that's a great idea". She was a graduate student. I said, "Yeah so, what do you think

  • happens here, now that you're better from your depression and suicidal thoughts?"

  • She said, "Oh, it's obvious". So I said, "Yeah I know it's obvious", I said, "but how would

  • you put words to it if you had to put words to it?" She said, "Never before in my

  • life have I ever had the experience of

  • feeling felt"...and that phrase for me changed everything. This fantastic

  • graduate student could articulate what happened in the therapy but it's also

  • what happens just in life, you know, when you're with someone and you feel felt,

  • you feel that your internal world is being received by the other, made sense

  • of the other...but not just an intellectual way, in a deep way we're

  • going to call empathy. You know, empathy has five facets to it.

  • Actually it has more than that, but I can only remember five. There actually, if you

  • read a book called The Neurobiology of Empathy, the lead editor on that is Jean

  • Decety, d-e-c-e-t-y. The first or second chapter in that

  • book is written by someone, one of the contributors, but he describes eight

  • forms of empathy...but I'm going to tell you about five of them which I think are

  • most relevant...and it's why I get so upset when people quote Tania Singer and

  • say empathy is bad, because that statement is so uninformed...because you

  • have to say to the person, "Excuse me, there are eight kinds of empathy. Which

  • of those? Or are you saying all of them are bad? What do you saying?" So, here are

  • the kinds of empathy that I think are relevant for Roots of Empathy to know

  • about. One, which is what Tania Singer had studied, and she's in Germany and it's

  • just maybe an English translation, I don't know, but she studied the first

  • thing we're talk about which is called emotional resonance. Emotional resonance

  • or empathic resonance if you want to keep on using the word empathy there, is

  • where this boy, if, let's say the baby is feeling excited. The receiver, having an

  • empathic communication will start feeling excited. Let's say the boy is

  • feeling scared. The receiver will feel scared. It's the essence of feeling felt...

  • right?...is empathic resonance and I'll go through the circuitry of that with you,

  • through the brain, a little later on but just let's name it...empathic resonance is

  • where you feel the feelings of another person.

  • Empathy form number two is perspective taken. You know, so if you're going to be

  • empathic with me it would be as if you were saying, "Let me put myself in

  • Dan's skin. Let me put myself in Dan's glasses"...you know seeing the world as I

  • would see the world. So its perspective taking and you can study these things

  • these are all study of all things but they're different. Empathic resonance and

  • perspective taking, they're just different but they're both what we call

  • empathy. Well which one's bad? You know...so perspective taking is where the

  • teacher says, "What do you think he's seeing?"...you know, what's his

  • experience? What he's seeing that toy is too far away or it was too upsetting for

  • him because there was too much noise. So, they're taking his perspective and we

  • saw that yesterday...it's beautiful, perspective taking. Imagine a world where we even if

  • we just did perspective taking, what a different world that would be, right?

  • So, perspective taking...the next one is called cognitive empathy. It's where you

  • elaborate a little more and the teachers did this beautifully yesterday in both

  • classrooms, where you say...okay, if you're a little you know nine month old and

  • you're little tired because your nap didn't go so well...and now you're in the

  • classroom, even though you know the kids and you're a little clinging on to mom and

  • then a loud noise happens...what do you think that means for little Jude? So now

  • you're going, "Well, I think it means he's probably remembering that last time he

  • was in the classroom there was another loud noise and then a really scary thing

  • happened, so maybe he's remembering how frightened he was, and so now he's

  • getting more frightened". So, it's more than just his perspective of what his

  • perception is at this moment, it's realizing that memory influences him and

  • that memory and emotion and you know, these judgments we make all influenced

  • our present moment experience. That's called cognitive empathy, really

  • important. You could call it empathic understanding if you want to use that

  • word but sometimes called empathic... cognitive empathy. So what do we have

  • here? Let's name them...emotional resonance, we've got perspective-taking, we have cognitive

  • empathy, right? Then you have something called empathic concern, which is

  • basically synonym for compassion. Empathic concern is basically this - I

  • feel your pain and I want to do something to reduce your suffering, and

  • now I'm going to think about what I might do and carry it out. So I was just

  • in England with Paul Gilbert and Paul is one of the world's experts on compassion

  • and basically that whole field of the passionate is a form of empathic concern.

  • They're synonyms.

  • So we have a word compassion, but it's actually the same as empathic concern...

  • but the key thing about compassion or empathic concern is that you're feeling

  • the suffering of another, step one...so you have to receive it...so when people shut

  • themselves off from that they're shutting off empathic concern...then they

  • have to take the suffering and then say, "Wow, there's a lot of suffering in you. I

  • feel really bad with that"...so that's step two. Then then you go into empathic

  • imagination that's not one of the categories, but if we can just name it.

  • Empathic imagination I go, "Wow, what, what could I do now to make you feel better?

  • Okay, you know, I could just be with you or I could bring you some water because

  • you're really so thirsty or I could get you a band-aid if you've fallen down"...or

  • whatever...so now I carry out, I imagine how I would carry out an action to be of

  • service to you and then depending on circumstances I actually do something,

  • but sometimes you can't but that's okay. Sometimes being with a person is fine.

  • So, compassion or empathic concern, synonym, is an action-oriented form of

  • empathy. So that's number four...and then number five is something we hardly ever

  • talk about which is called empathic joy... and you saw every one of these

  • were seen in the classroom yesterday.

  • It was so beautiful, right? Empathic joy is, "I get so excited about your success. I

  • am so happy"...in this case you know these kids are seeing this little Jude develop

  • over the time and they're so thrilled about his accomplishments. "Now he can sit

  • up, wow! Now he can crawl, whoa!" We're putting the ball over there and he's going

  • after his mom you know, she went on the other side. It was awesome to see the

  • empathic joy. It's one of the most underemphasized empathic skills that we

  • have. You know, I was... is there question? Yes.

  • So, empathic joy, yeah...so in a way it overlaps an emotional resonance in fact, they all

  • overlap in the emotional resonance. You could say you can't have the other four

  • without emotional resonance but you know, you've got to resonate with someone's pain,

  • you've got to do all those things...but it's different in the sense that emotional

  • resonance is, "I'm just feeling your feelings"...empathic joy is, "I am thrilled

  • with your, you know basically, your positive experience". A lot of people have

  • schadenfreude, right? They get upset with other people's success. So this is the

  • opposite of that. This is where, you know, the way I was going to say that...the way,

  • the way you do this is you can imagine life as a candle, right? The way our

  • modern cultures set things up and this came up...there were, there's a few public

  • high schools in California that are right near Stanford University and sadly

  • a number of the high school kids were throwing themselves in front of a train

  • and killing himself...so they asked me to go do an intervention and when I went to

  • the school, some of the students interviewed me and they asked if they

  • could film it...so the students filmed it and they did such a good job filming it,

  • we just put it up online. So if you go to my website, drdansiegel.com, you can

  • see me speaking and the camera will be on me so you won't see the terrified

  • looks on the kids' faces or their parents who are in the room's face or the teachers

  • or the administrators...the principals of the school were there...but you'll at least see

  • my face and you'll see me resonating with them. So at the end what I said was

  • you know, part of the problem with our culture of competition is that we have

  • this attitude where if we're candles and my wick is lit and your wick is lit I'm

  • going to do everything I can to blow out your wick, so I'm like the only candle

  • shining...so when I apply to middle school and can get into that elite middle

  • school or I'm going to apply to college and get into the elite college, I'm going to

  • be the one that shines through, you know... or when I'm applying to the most

  • competitive graveyard, I'll get in there first, you know...and, and I said this is a

  • serious problem in our society. Other people's

  • being lit up threatens us...so, it's the opposite of this empathic joy...so, what I

  • said was, "Imagine a world where, if you're wick is lit and you see someone next to

  • you whose wick is not lit"...like someone's not learning or they're not

  • figuring out how to be in life and stuff... "and you lean over and you light their

  • wick and then you come straighten out again and now both of you are lit up, and

  • then you see someone to your left their wick is not lit and you lean over. You light

  • their wick"...and now I said to the group listening you know, "what did that do to

  • my flame, to light up these other two candles?"...and they go, "nothing, it took nothing

  • away"...and then one of the moms in the room who had been looking very frightened before

  • she goes, "but it makes the world a brighter place"... you know, and that's when

  • a empathic joy is you say listen...and we'll get to this soon, the notion of the self

  • being defined by the boundaries of the skin, just like the mind being defined by

  • the boundaries of the skull, these are linguistic parts of our modern culture.

  • It's been around with us in science for 2,500 years, so this is a long-term

  • linguistic, I'm going to suggest you, lie... and it's a lethal lie. There is no reason

  • that the self needs to be limited by the skin...and you may go, "That is just weird.

  • Why did the Marys bring this guy up here? That is like so freaky weird". Well, the

  • thing is, if you say that the self comes from the mind which I think it does, like

  • where is this boy's mind? It's not just in his head and it's not just in his

  • body. It's happening now in the classroom.

  • The mind is broader than the brain and the self is bigger than the skin encased

  • body...and this is something we don't often talk about...that's why I'm nervous

  • about the word self-awareness or self-regulation or stuff like that...

  • ...because self is a plural verb, it's not singular noun but we use it as

  • singular noun. Oh, this, Dan...his self is in this body. Well that's just part of

  • the story and as long as we live a life and have cultural communication that

  • keeps on repeating the lie, basically it's lethal. It's a lethal lie. It kills

  • the reality, so it's untrue. It kills our sense of belonging in the world. It kills

  • our capacity to actually connect with "others", but really connect with

  • human beings that are actually a part of who we are. It, it really inhibits our

  • capacity to be a part of a community...this, how am I going to help the

  • self do that?...and people, at least in the United States, who experience this are

  • miserable. It's, it's...but it no one talks about it.

  • So, the mind of this child is actually being created in the betweenness, with

  • little Jude and this boy...and that's the kind of connection that doesn't happen

  • just by learning math, or reading a book, or learning history, or something. It just

  • doesn't...and yet it happens in Roots of Empathy. If you would have heard these

  • eighth graders talk about what Roots of Empathy did with them, you could see, it

  • allowed them to start sensing the mind of another person. Okay, that's step one.

  • All five forms of empathy we've talked about are reinforced with the Roots of

  • Empathy, but if you then go back to what we said about the Social Brain Theory of

  • Consciousness or even the integrations theory we're going to get into now, then

  • what you see is that these experiences of interconnection change your

  • experience of inner awareness. Let's just use that term inner and Inter, rather

  • than self and other...right? So, Joshua was telling us before we got started about

  • you know programs where you start being of service to others, where you start

  • being of service to the community, service to nature, scientifically doing

  • things to support a more sustainable environment. Those kids have a much

  • better academic outcome because they have a much better developmental outcome...

  • because they are a part of a larger world.

  • You literally have an expanded experience of life because the true

  • nature of who you are is being realized... because you are connected to that creek.

  • The Creek is a part of you, but we don't talk like this because we got these

  • words...self...well, that doesn't get that self advanced

  • into that elite graveyard, you know, seriously. Okay so, let's go through...let

  • me see if there any questions about where we're at now. We've now defined

  • empathy. I've got to come to the Tania Singer story, and then we're going to get

  • a little bit into the brain and then talk about resilience, empathy, and the

  • brain to dive into that. Any questions so far? Yeah, Jean..everybody know Jean?

  • Jean Clinton? Yes.

  • Jean Clinton: Self is a plural verb.

  • Dan Siegel: Yeah. Self is a plural verb, yeah.

  • Jean Clinton: Could you tell me more about that?

  • Dan Siegel: Yeah so, you know...I mean, I'm kind of a nut about all these different disciplines, but in

  • linguistics you know, especially because it's how we communicate with each other,

  • you get to these fun opportunities like, what are these words doing to us without

  • our even knowing it? So words are both limiting and liberating at the same time.

  • So, self as a plural verb versus self as a singular noun, the way it's usually

  • used is you know...you have a self called Jean that's just you, in that body. I have

  • a self called Dan, it's in this body, right? So those are singular noun views. So

  • linguistically we don't even question it. We just live it. Okay well, here's little

  • Danny. My parents say, "Danny, get a good grade on

  • the test, Danny do this, Danny do that"...and I believe them because they love me and

  • the only want good for me, right? So, I believe it but it gets embedded in...you

  • know, I mean, let's keep in mind really, who we are is basically energy and

  • information flow patterns, all right?...but it's such a complex thing, we have to

  • make these things called models and the models like, who am I? Okay, I'm Dan, in

  • this body. You know, the models are represented by words...then once we hear

  • the words that are coming from the models, the words themselves reinforce

  • the model. So here's, here's this, what's called a mental model,

  • it's basically if you think about it this way...energy and information flow

  • comes to your body. Its energy. That's called sensation. Between sensation and

  • perception, there are models that are filtering sensation into certain

  • organizational structures. So for example, if you've seen a d-o-g before a dog, you

  • know, when this fluffy animal comes in... okay, you may have the photon hit your

  • eyes and this fluffy animal's thing wagging is like that and you know...and

  • then you hear the "woof, woof", you hear the sound coming into your ears, that's all energy flow.

  • That's sensation...but because you've seen a dog before, many dogs, and you have the

  • name dog...right away that model, from sensation before you get to perception,

  • is turned into a constricted perceptual model. So you don't actually see that

  • animal in front of you. You just, and you don't even know this is happening, you just call

  • him dog. I mean, to be very respectful, but it's a fun story...there's no such thing

  • as immaculate perception. Okay? It is shaped by prior experience and models. So

  • now you have this perceptual model that you think is the thing itself but it's

  • not. It's your model of the thing. Then you go from perception to cognition,

  • right?...where you have other models that are going in, shaping how you think, right?...

  • ...and then you go from cognition, you know, to planning...for motor action planning, right?

  • ...and that's full of models that you don't, that you aren't even aware...these models are not

  • even in our awareness...and then you carry out an action, and you may think you're carrying

  • it out based on what you think you want to do, but it's all sorts of other things

  • going on before consciousness, beneath consciousness and then you carry out an

  • action. You go, "There, I am carrying out that action". Right?...but it's all

  • influenced by these models that get reinforced by our communication with

  • each other, including language. So like, an avoidant attachment, what happens in

  • those families is, there is a relational model that the mind doesn't exist and

  • only behaviors are worth experiencing. So like, when I went to medical school

  • and my professors would tell people, "Oh, we've got in your lab data and you know,

  • I'm sorry to report but you're dying.

  • Goodbye"...and I'd pull on their lab coats after they left the room and I'd say,

  • "Don't you want to talk to this patient about how she feels?"...and literally my

  • professors would say, "Why?", and I would go, "What?", and they'd go, "Why would I talk to that

  • person about how she feels? I'd told her what's going on. I made an assay,

  • basically of her body and her molecules"...the physical aspect of this

  • being, "Why would I talk about feelings?" I go,

  • "Well because, you just told her she's dying and she may have feelings about it".

  • They would say to me over and over again, "That's not what doctors do". So I

  • dropped out of school and when I decided... and I came to Canada, of course. That's the

  • only place you go, when you drop out of school...travelled across Canada, met a lot

  • of nice Canadians and I was going to be a salmon fisherman in Vancouver Island.

  • Anyway, I did get picked up when I was hitchhiking...don't tell my kids I was

  • hitchhiking, but I was hitchhiking... I got picked up on Vancouver Island and

  • this guy says, "Well, what's your story?" I said, "Well, I was a medical student but I

  • dropped out and I become a salmon fisherman"...and he goes, "That's

  • amazing". I said, "What's so amazing about that?" He goes, "I am a salmon fisherman and

  • I'm dropping out to become a psychology professor"...and I'm looking for this guy,

  • if you anyone knows who it is. I don't know who he is. I said, "Well cool", I said, "What's it

  • like being a salmon fisherman?" He goes, "I said I'm dropping out". I said, "Why?". He goes,

  • "Well, I like playing tennis but you get up at 4:00 in the morning and all you're

  • doing is like this all day long. I can't even stand up straight anymore". I said, "Oh

  • my God". I already had a bad back, so I said, "Okay, you just saved me many years

  • of salmon fishing". So I decided to do other things, but the bottom line of that story

  • is when I decided to go back to school, I made up this word called mindsight and I

  • said, "Look, I imagine those professors probably hadn't changed in the year I

  • took off", you know so I need a word to protect me. So I went in there kind of

  • like an anthropologist and I studied how bad they were as care providers, you know.

  • So I could try to constantly in my mind say, "Does this person have mindsight or not?"...and

  • then when I was in pediatrics, I noticed the families who had mindsight did better

  • with their kids who had these medical problems. Right? They could deal with them

  • more resilient way. Mindsight is three things - it's this capacity to have insight

  • into your inner life, empathy for the inner life of another bodily experience/

  • another person, and the third thing is integration which is this honoring of

  • differences in promoting of linkages and we're going talk about it right now. So it

  • was a very helpful term for me, but what I noticed sadly, was that most of my

  • professors in medical school were research professors...I was at a research

  • institution...you know, they had physical sight up the wazoo. They were very famous,

  • renowned researchers doing physical research that could then...they were also

  • MDs, so they were seeing patients...but they didn't have mindsight. You can go through

  • an entire curriculum K through 12 and be taught physical sight. You can go through

  • college and be just taught physical sight. You can go to medical school, like I did,

  • and only be taught physical sight...but I used to work on a suicide prevention

  • service in college and I was taught, the way you tune into the mind of the caller

  • on the phone who is about to kill herself, can make the difference between life and

  • death. So when I went to medical school, I thought, "Cool, I'm trained as a biochemist. I'm also

  • trained as a suicide prevention service. Medicine will be where they come

  • together". No way, it didn't happen at all because they lack mindsight. Now, I'm not

  • going to make any proclamations of understanding that this is true, but as

  • an attachment researcher what I found out was that 20% of the general

  • population basically lack mindsight... and those are the ones with a history of

  • avoidant attachment, and I'm not saying that, that percentage is the same in

  • universities because maybe it's different in certain directions, right? So,

  • you know, so physical sight and mindsight, are just very different circuits in the

  • brain...you know they're very different circuit of the brain...and you can turn it

  • off like that. It's what genocide is based on. If you

  • start treating someone like an out-group you can shut off your mindsight circuits.

  • I used to be the psychiatrist for the survivors of the Shoah foundation. We

  • collected 55,000 interviews of survivors of the Holocaust and my job was to keep

  • the staff healthy, as best I could, because hearing those stories was

  • unbelievably painful...you got secondary post-traumatic disorder.

  • Anyway, part of my job was to go over to Europe and go to the concentration camps

  • where the subjects were interviewing had been interned and obviously they

  • survived...but when I was at one of the camps Majdanek, in Poland, the person

  • giving me a tour, had been a kid in the town and Majdanek, if any of you have ever been

  • there you know, is where the crematorium... you know, because they were gassing and

  • then murdering like six million people... and this is one of those camps where they did

  • that...it was right next to the apartments where the guards lived. So I said to the

  • tour guide, I said, "Well, what was it like to live there?" He goes, "Well, you'd be

  • surprised. Those guards were nice people"...like they played with their, kids they

  • played with their dogs, they were nice people...and it made me realize, your mindsight

  • circuitry can be turned off if you look at a person and say, "This is a

  • sub-human being. This is like a cockroach"...and sadly we had this in-group, out-group

  • distinction thing that we talked about last yesterday in the eighth grade, you

  • know, where...especially if you look at mortality salience studies or what are

  • called terror management studies...when we're under threat, it increases the

  • brains in-group, out-group tendencies and you treat people that you deem as the

  • in-group with more kindness, when you're under threat...and you treat people who

  • you deem in the out group with more harshness, you know...and then our

  • wonderful colleagues from Northern Ireland, you talked about the incredible

  • thing about the Protestants and the Catholics killing each other. You know,

  • because one of the kids in the classroom who was an African-Canadian said...you

  • know, we said, "Well, what are you guys worried about about the world? What would

  • like to see change"...and he goes, "How stereotyped people can become"...you know,

  • we start talking about racism and then we were talking about this in-group,

  • out-group distinction...the experience in Ireland. I said, "Look, you know, with mindsight

  • you can rise above that because the brain does have this natural proclivity

  • to do in-group, out-group distinction, especially under stress but we now know

  • the mind can rise above what the brain is doing". This is the key thing to

  • realize about resilience, is that your mind is not the same as your brain. You

  • can develop resilience from communities, you can develop resilience from

  • consciousness that rise above these tendencies

  • we have. So in Roots of Empathy, what you're teaching is you're expanding the

  • consciousness of these kids. I mean, I'm telling you and luckily it was being

  • taped, when you see the tapes of this discussion that these Roots of Empathy

  • graduates could talk about wanting to reduce racism, wanting to actually have

  • less violence, wanting to have people respect each other, seeing that it was

  • good to Roots of Empathy over and over again because then you saw from a

  • different perspective as you, yourself grew...even though the kid was still you

  • know zero to one...you, yourself saw it through a different lens...and just to see

  • the way these kids of all different nationalities in the school or ethnic

  • backgrounds in the school...I guess they were all Canadian, you know, to see them

  • actually respect each other's contributions to the discussion was

  • amazing. It was absolutely amazing, but that's what integration is, honouring

  • differences, promoting linkages. So, let's, let's look at some of the circuitry of

  • this and Jean does that, that help to get to the issue of the self? You know, when you

  • could feel in the room, this 8th grade classroom, you could feel that the self

  • was not just in a separate way...you could feel it...they might not have words

  • for that, but if you don't have mindsight, which Roots of Empathy, I think is

  • promoting mindsight in a huge and experiential way...the best kind of

  • learning is experiential learning, and Roots of Empathy just dives right into

  • that. You can have a kid go through an attachment set of relationships, develop

  • no mindsight...you can have them in schools where most schools don't develop

  • mindsight at all...awareness ones inner life, awareness of the mental life of

  • other people, and integration is respecting that another person's

  • perspective is different from yours. There was one kid in the eighth grade class

  • yesterday...it was unbelievable...he said, "What Roots of Empathy taught me was that you

  • know, I've got a lot of opinions, I got a lot of judgments...but it's taught me that

  • even though I may have a judgment come up inside of me, when I look at another

  • person who's not doing something the way I think they should do it or think in

  • way I think, I've got to go well their perspective is just as valuable as mine".

  • I mean, isn't that what he said? I mean you go, "Oh my God".

  • You know, now the fact that Mary Gordon you know trained him to say that, you

  • know, and it was all a set up. Where's Mary? You know...no, I'm just kidding about that.

  • I mean it was so beautiful. Yeah, Josh. Joshua Aronson: I like the idea of sight as a metaphor

  • and it turns out, if you don't get visual stimulation when you're really

  • young, you won't develop your sight. Dan Siegel: Exactly

  • Joshua Aronson: So does work the same way

  • with mindsight? Or can you go through life without the Roots of Empathy

  • experience and develop it later on? Dan Siegel: Yeah. It's a great question, you know, when I

  • was in medical school, the person who taught me brain science was a fellow

  • named David Hubel and David Hubel in 1981, when I was in school with him, won

  • the Nobel Prize for proving just what you just said...that if you don't expose a

  • visual stimuli to, these were kittens, at a certain age they can never develop

  • that. In Pediatrics, we knew this you know, if a kid had you know, opacities in the

  • lens of the eye you know, and they couldn't see well, we had to do something

  • within the first two years or you, you messed up the brain for life. With mindsight,

  • you know, it's an interesting issue there's in...and now let's get into

  • the brain, based on Joshua's question...I don't want to shock anyone but once upon

  • a time there was a sperm and egg...are we okay so far?...and they get together, right,

  • and the sperm and egg get together and they form a single cell. The single cell

  • forms two, then four you know, and eight and sixteen, thirty-two, sixty-four, etcetera, etcetera...

  • ...until there comes a time this glob of cells in the womb of the mother becomes so big

  • that there's an interesting moment that affects the rest of existence, which is

  • they begin to differentiate. Some cells are on the outside and some are on the

  • inside just because of the size. So we're going to keep track of that word,

  • differentiation. Differentiation just means making different, being special,

  • being unique, okay?...but their linked because they're connected to each other,

  • okay? So now as this glob grows, the organs start growing and stuff like that and

  • an incredible moment happens and put your hands together like this...so you can

  • see what this like...where the outer layer so the ectoderm actually

  • starts to invaginate. So if you move your fingernails inward, so your knuckles, your

  • first knuckle, then your second knuckles kiss like that...see where your

  • fingernails now are? They're inside this body. That's the neural tube. That's going

  • to become all the neurons which are going to make up the brain. So, let's back

  • it up and do it again. So the outer layer called the ectoderm is going to

  • invaginate inward and become the nervous system. So, to say it really in a simple

  • way -- neurons, the basic cell of the nervous system, are fancy skin cells. Now

  • I say that because it's an important place to begin, because basically, we think of the

  • brain as inside the skull, the nervous system inside your body, but what's the

  • purpose of the skin? The purpose of the skin is to interface the outer world and

  • the inner world, but that's exactly what the nervous system is...so when we say the

  • brain, this collection of neurons that cluster up inside the head, is the social

  • organ of the body, it's just like saying the skin is the interface between the inner

  • and the outer...because these are fancy skin cells. That's lesson number one.

  • Lesson number two is the way these basic cells of the nervous system are going to

  • make connections with each other, synaptic connections, is by a process

  • driven by two things...one is genes not like Jean Clinton but by g-e-n-e-s,

  • well maybe that's the way you spell your name but genes you know,

  • chromosomes with DNA and experience and they go together in some interesting

  • ways. The first thing to say to respond to Joshua's question is you have two

  • kinds of genetically driven growth...one is called experience-expectant growth,

  • the other's experience-dependent growth. So, experience-expectant growth is where

  • every member of the species would expect you're going to have that kind of

  • experience, so experience-expectant. What does that mean?

  • For Jude, we would expect light is going to come in his eyes. His mom is not going

  • to stick him in a dark room his whole life. So light coming into eyes would be

  • expected. So, genes set it up so your visual

  • system, which is primarily in the back of your brain, is going to grow independent

  • of light, you see. It's going to start growing in the womb even and then

  • afterwards it's going to grow, grow, grow. Genetics is going to say, "Produce the

  • visual system, produce the visual system"... but if there's something wrong with his

  • eyes, if that experience-expectant genetically driven set of circuits

  • doesn't get the stimulation from the eyes it will die away and that's what

  • David Hubel was able to show. So experience-expectant growth is just what

  • you're saying...if you don't get the stimulation at some point it's going to

  • be a problem. The second kind of genetically prepared growth is called

  • experience-dependent. So, think about riding a tricycle...not every kid on this

  • planet is going to ride a tricycle but you can learn to ride a tricycle.

  • So the actual experience of being put on a tricycle and learning to do your

  • tricycle riding, that's experience-dependent. Experience is getting neurons

  • to fire and as your wonderful Canadian physician and physiologist Donald Hebb

  • said, although he didn't really say it but he said the essence of it, neurons

  • that fire together wire together...that was actually Carla Shatz, a woman who is

  • the neuroscientist at Stanford who paraphrased Donald Hebb...so, but it's

  • called a Hebbian law, you know, neurons fire together wire together...and there's

  • a more elaborate thing that we can say which is where attention goes, neural

  • firing flows and neural connection grows... and that becomes essential to understand

  • the Roots of Empathy or even the tricycle experience. If I'm on the

  • tricycle and now I'm paying attention to what I'm doing, where attention goes is

  • getting my neurons to fire in a tricycle kind of way, right? So okay, so now I'm

  • doing that...so where attention goes, neural firing flows and here's what

  • we've learned, and a Nobel Prize was given for this, which is when neurons

  • fire they turn on genes and get them to produce proteins to make the connections

  • grow. So, that's basically the mechanism beneath this idea of where neural firing

  • goes, neural connection grows. In Roots of Empathy, you're getting

  • attention on the mind. So it could be that while attachment may be an

  • experience-expectant system, so that you know, if you have zero attachment figures

  • by the age of ten it may in fact be you can never really develop the capacity

  • for close connections...that some of what it's my colleagues and attachment are

  • feeling...there's some window because that's experience-expectant. Mindsight

  • may be a more experienced-dependent... that's the good news...so the window may

  • not close totally, you'll want to do it...earlier is better you know...but if you know the book

  • Mindsight, you know I talked about a case of a 92 year old person who had very

  • little mindsight and with some intervention, because he had an avoidant

  • attachment history, he could develop those circuitries of compassion and empathy.

  • So that's 92...so that's the way to understand it for the attachment system

  • in general, if you have someone who's had zero attachment, it's not called an

  • attachment category, it's an attachment disorder...but for people who've had

  • attachment, even really traumatizing ones, you can grow through that...so a number of

  • us are talking about the ACEs study, the adverse childhood experiences scale...

  • ...Michael and I were talking about this last night you know, you have this opportunity

  • to think about that finding that early challenging events for some people can

  • lead to really negative physiological outcomes, medical illness...but there's a

  • certain percentage of people where that doesn't happen and what those

  • researchers didn't study was have those people, where they don't have that

  • negative outcome actually resolve those traumas, resolve those losses...because in

  • my field, attachment, we've shown in our research that you can have a horrible,

  • horrible, horrible set of experiences but if you've taken the time to make sense of

  • them and resolve them as you know, that's what the research shows...that's why I

  • wrote a book called Parenting From the Inside Out, which is to show you how to

  • do that...you can actually show that at least for the next generation, they are

  • clear of what happened to you. So making sense

  • is really important. How do you make sense? With mindsight...so this is why I

  • think it's probably as a therapist, I never give up hope for developing mindsight

  • and that 92 year old is a good example in that Mindsight book. Okay, so now the

  • brain is developing... now, the Marys came in early this

  • morning and with that blue tape you use when you're putting stuff up, they've put a

  • model of the brain as a handout for today's talk that you can take home. So,

  • if you reach under your chair, they've taped it under your chair, reach under

  • your chair, you'll see...can you, can you feel it?...and then you pull out your hand...

  • you'll see attached to your wrist is a hand. Does everyone have that? Let me

  • check with Mary. Can they take this home? Yeah. Mary is it okay if they take it home? So,

  • so this is your hand model of the brain. We're going to go through some neuro-

  • anatomy and neurodevelopment here. So you put your thumb in the middle and you

  • can all take this home, it's very useful... my daughter said, "Dad, do not call it a

  • handy model of the brain". So I didn't...I did not call it a handy model brain, but

  • it's very handy and it's a model. So let's go through this model and we're

  • going to look at the neurobiology of empathy, and what I think is the

  • neurobiology of resilience but we have one of the world's experts on resilience

  • who's here...you'll hear whether Michael agrees or not, but I'll give you my take

  • on resilience as an attachment research person based on an interpersonal

  • neurobiology view. So here's how it goes... the spinal cord is represented in your

  • wrist. If you lift up your fingers, lift up your thumb, the deepest part of the

  • brain, the brain stem is represented here in the palm and we teach this to you

  • know, teachers, to therapists and kids in school as young as five learn the hand

  • model the brain...it's very handy and the brain stem is here in your palm, the

  • limbic area develops next and it's in your, your thumb...how old is Jude? Four

  • months, great... So when Jude was in utero, his brain stem

  • developed very well and almost fully developed then his limbic area, let's say

  • at birth, is partially developed...and one of the biggest things that's going to

  • happen now to Jude at four months of age is the way is limbic area is going to

  • continue to develop and the very underdeveloped cortex, if you put your

  • fingers over the top, will be developing right?...and the key thing for the whole

  • notion is that you have the way this cluster of neurons, there's about a hundred

  • billion of them, will work together as a system and the way a system works is it

  • differentiates its areas and links them. What is this system all about? It's all

  • about energy flow in the form of electrochemical energy flow,

  • so its ions flowing in and out of membranes called an action potential...you don't

  • need to worry about that, that's the electrical part. It releases chemicals,

  • that's the chemical energy part, but it's electrochemical energy flow and these

  • systems can become differentiated and then linked. So the word we use for that

  • is integration, is integration. Here's the amazing thing about this development and

  • now if you want to see the science of this, I wrote a textbook called The Developing

  • Mind...if you just want the take home messages, you can read a book called The

  • Pocket Guide to Interpersonal Neurobiology... or if you want to see how to do this

  • with kids, there's a bunch of parenting books I've written or books for

  • adolescents...but the idea goes like this... the way and, can I have your first name?

  • Is that okay? Liz. So the way Liz is interacting with Jude can be promoting

  • of relational integration or not. So remember, integration is the linking

  • of differentiated parts. So as an attachment researcher, if I were popping

  • in to watch Liz interact with Jude, it would be where I'm watching how their

  • communication, for me, is revealing integration or not. How would they not be

  • integrated? If there was no differentiation, then Jude (Liz) might have in

  • her mind, "Oh, he's probably you know needing some stimulation now because I

  • need some stimulation"...and then she's going to bounce him around the room but

  • he's really just tired. So she's not differentiating his needs

  • from her ideas. So that would be an unintegrated relationship and that would be seen as a form of

  • something we would call ambivalent attachment...or if there was a

  • parent-child dyad where someone was getting their sexual needs met with a

  • child or was getting their anger needs met and beating a child, there wouldn't

  • be differentiation. So those would all be various degrees of impaired integration

  • in the relationship...or there might be too much differentiation and Liz might

  • say, "I'm just listening to this lecture. Jude's cool. He's four months, he can do

  • it on his own. What's the problem?"...and she puts him off in the corner and soon

  • Jude would learn what's going on inside of me is not worth being seen by anybody

  • else...and soon he would just shut down and that's called avoidant attachment...or if

  • it were really severe, it would be called neglect...but in a minor way, it's just a form

  • of avoidance. That's a whole talk on attachment, but let's just say that, that

  • also would be too much differentiation and not enough linkage, right? So either

  • way, impairments to secure attachment are impairments to integration. Now, an

  • integrated relationship would be where you say, you know, "I'm feeling a little

  • tired, so maybe I'm misinterpreting what Jude's things are going on. So I've tried

  • jumping around but maybe I'm really not right. Oh my God, maybe he's hungry. No

  • he's not hungry. Okay, it looks like he's really tired, he just needs to be soothed".

  • So there would be you would be making your efforts to repair any disconnection

  • that happens, repair is really important... or if you flip your lid you make a

  • repair, but those ideas of connection with repair of ruptures are what we mean

  • by an integrated relationship. So that's the relational side of it...the kids in

  • Roots of Empathy are seeing that happen all the time. When both the mother and

  • the baby and a facilitator, and the mother and the baby are having these

  • integrated relationships, they're demonstrating them for many kids who

  • don't have that at home. So, Roots of Empathy gives a

  • powerful source of experiencing integration in a relationship. Now here

  • is the startling thing, and if you read the developing mind, especially the

  • second edition, you'll see all the science behind what I'm going to say...

  • because if I were you never hearing anything I, Dan had ever said before, I

  • would think this is ridiculous... and I would say to my interns, I had 15

  • interns work for me to revise the first edition of The Developing Mind, I said to

  • them, "This is too simple. It can't be like this, it's too simple. It's not said

  • anywhere else, so it's probably wrong. Let's discover the wrongness of it, find

  • all the ways it's wrong and let's write a new book that'll be more fun and more

  • accurate"...and they thought I was nuts. I said, "That's the way you have to do

  • science, you have to look for the things as if they're wrong. Anyone could just

  • nitpick one thing or the other and say there, I'm right". So this comes from these

  • 15 interns looking for all the wrongness of what I'm about to say. They could find

  • nothing to disprove what I'm going to say and tons of thing to support it.

  • Relational integration stimulates the growth of neural integration. That's

  • take-home message number two or whatever we're at. When you have energy and information

  • flow that's shared in an integrated way, it creates integration in the nervous

  • system...couldn't find one thing to go against that kind of evidence...just look

  • at The Developing Mind. I'm going to stop saying that but because of...I'm kind of

  • relating to you and I'm looking at these faces go, "That's weird". I know it's weird

  • but remember skull and skin are not boundaries, impermeable boundaries of

  • energy information flow...it's one system, energy information flow...let's put

  • ourselves in the Martian point of view. Energy information flow, relationally,

  • when it's integrative, just like we tried to carefully define it here,

  • differentiated and linked, promotes integration the brain. The next related

  • take-home message is this, and I said to the interns, "This can't be true", but here's

  • the statement: All regulation comes from integration. I said, "Show me one thing

  • that doesn't support that". They couldn't find one thing.

  • When you regulate emotion, affect, mood, it depends on fibres in the brain that are

  • differentiated and linked...when you regulate attention, differentiated and linked...

  • ...when you regulate thought, behavior, when you regulate morality, when

  • you regulate relationships, it all depends on integration of the brain. Just to

  • give you an example what I'm talking about,

  • the corpus callosum linking the left and right hemisphere links to differentiate

  • left to the differentiated right...the hippocampus which links widely

  • differentiated memory systems to each other, the prefrontal cortex...take your

  • hand model and this cortex here has an area right behind your forehead which is

  • represented where your middle finger nails are and let's look at what it

  • links...it links the cortex, which is making representations or maps of the

  • world, with the limbic area that has five features, which is all about working with

  • the brainstem and the body to create emotion, working with the brainstem to

  • create motivation, working within itself to create what's called appraisal...so you

  • have emotion, motivation, appraisal, you've got systems that are basically involved

  • in memory differentiation, that's a long story we won't get into it, but involving

  • memory functionsand the fifth function is attachment, our close relationships

  • with each other...so attachment, memory, appraisal (evaluating the meaning of

  • things), motivation (what drives your behavior), and emotion are mediated by the

  • limbic area. So, this prefrontal cortex is connecting cortex with all those five

  • functions...then if you lift up your limbic area and go to your brainstem, the

  • brainstem is involved in basic physiological processes like regulating

  • heart rate and respiration and digestion... but in addition to that it has the

  • clusters of neurons called nuclei that are involved in the fight, flight, freeze

  • and faint response...what gets activated when you're threatened. So

  • we were talking yesterday but was having an Ireland or what happens the United

  • States or what's happening around this world, human beings are activating their

  • threat response...they're activating their brainstem, some people call the old

  • reptilian brain, right? Some people like to call it the lizard brain. It's part of us

  • so it's not just a lizard brain, but it's very, very primitive. When you get in this

  • fight, flight, freeze and faint state activated by the brainstem. So, this

  • prefrontal region here is connecting cortex to limbic area to the brainstem and

  • even signals coming up from the body, that we'll talk about in just a moment...

  • ...and to boot, it connects the social world. So social, somatic, bodily, brainstem,

  • limbic and cortical are all coordinated and balanced by the prefrontal cortex. So

  • what I'm going to say to you is that relational integration promotes growth

  • of these integrative areas...the prefrontal cortex, the hippocampus, the

  • corpus callosum and now we know, through a set of reasoning, that this is a

  • probably issue...but we have a new study called the Connectome study, The Human

  • Connectome Project...Connectome is the word connect with the letters o-m-e at

  • the end. It's a new way we're identifying differentiated areas of brain and how

  • they're linked...and we now know the following findings...number one, the work

  • of Martin Teicher at Harvard University shows that the three areas I mentioned

  • prefrontal, hippocampal, corpus callosum are all damaged with developmental

  • trauma, which means abuse and neglect...we may be able to grow them but, I'm just

  • identifying his work which is not intervention work, it's just describing

  • what happens...and the connectome is less interconnected, meaning the brain is less

  • integrated with developmental trauma. So the reason kids with developmental

  • trauma, abuse and neglect, have trouble with regulation is because regulation

  • depends on integration. See how that works?...and the integration of the brain

  • comes from integration in the relationship,

  • which is what Roots of Empathy teaches, you see this? Number two, studies not

  • related to experiences like developmental trauma...this is now the

  • work of Marcus Raichle at the University of Washington St. Louis or Hilary

  • Blumberg at Yale University... what are those show? Those show that

  • people with disorders like manic-depressive illness, schizophrenia,

  • or autism, not caused by what parents do, they have impaired integration in the

  • exact same areas. So we have this finding now that psychiatric disorders either

  • experientially caused or not experientially caused all have impaired

  • neural integration...and then we have an online program and one of our online

  • students called us up in October 2015 and she said, "Hey you guys, did you see

  • this study that came out this morning?" ...and we said, "Well, we're not sure. What is

  • it?"...and she goes, "i'm going to send it to you". So in October 2015, the international Human

  • Connectome Project came out with this massive study of many, many, many

  • individuals...they studied every measure of well-being you could measure and

  • tried to find any neural correlates that predicted well-being and they found one...

  • ...how interconnected your connectome is, how he integrated your brain is, is the

  • best predictor of your well-being. So in terms of resilience and well-being, and

  • you'll hear from Michael later about this and much more depth, my view is that

  • resilience comes from integration. The ability to respond in a regulated way to

  • challenges in life is how I would define integration, I mean sorry how I would

  • define resilience comes from integration. That's what I think. Now why would empathy

  • have anything to do with this?...and I know I have five minutes left, then we have a

  • Q&A, right? Yes. So, here's what I want to talk to you about and why people said I

  • was saying the wrong thing about empathy... and why a Yale professor writes a book

  • against empathy and why scientific American minds said too much empathy is a

  • bad thing...because this is what's been happening last what, three

  • years, two or three years...it's goofy, it's really goofy and it's also destructive

  • because they're missing the impact on society and here's what's happening...so

  • I'm on the stage with Tania Singer...I said, "Tania,

  • everyone's quoting you and telling me I shouldn't talk about empathy because of

  • you". She goes, "What?" So what Tania did in her study, to say it

  • very briefly was, she puts a person in scanner, shows them a photo of a really

  • bad situation and basically, when people over identify with the person in the car

  • accident let's say, they have so much emotional resonance and they're not

  • differentiating themselves from others, their whole brain shuts down...and this is

  • consistent with other studies that you'll see in that density book too.

  • When you don't differentiate, when you're two linked and you quote, "have too much

  • empathy", this is where they're getting it from her study, that's not good...but what

  • Tania showed was that if you take it from excessive emotional resonance

  • without differentiation, that's what I said to her, she said, "Absolutely", and take

  • it to compassion where you say, "Well that's not me, that's that person. What

  • can I do to be of service to that person?" ...she's actually creating integration,

  • she's creating the differentiation that's needed...

  • ...empathy doesn't require you become the other person, so basically, the way I

  • would summarize her work with her permission because is what she said was,

  • yeah, when you resonate too much and you don't distinguish yourself from the

  • other, you can burnout... no kidding, but empathy is so much more

  • than over-identification. When you put perspective-taking in it, you're not a,

  • your cognitive understanding, all the things we talked about...so i said, "Tania,

  • his empathy bad?..she goes, "Absolutely not". I said, "Tania,

  • don't you need empathy for compassion?" She goes, "Completely". There was one small

  • group of monks from Tibet that didn't, they could do it on their own but anyway,

  • but in general, in general she said you can't have compassion without empathy.

  • So for someone to say this is a quote from Tania Singer, for someone to empathy

  • is bad is completely misleading. It's not bad. When you put the integration

  • framework in, it makes sense. So let me just do about...two minutes? Yeah...let me

  • do a quick passageway of empathy in the brain so we can understand that. So

  • here's your brain...take your hand model... this is looking at Marco Iacoboni's insula

  • hypothesis and this I think is what deeply happens in Roots of Empathy, that

  • builds your mindsight circuitry...so if you want to know about this it's I-a-c-o-

  • -b-o-n-i, Iacoboni colleague of mine UCLA, he wrote a book called Mirroring People

  • and it's one perspective on the neurobiology of empathy but it builds on

  • a bunch of different people's views so it's not like an outlier...but here's how

  • it works... this boy is watching little Jude here,

  • okay? The energy information coming from

  • little Jude is entering this boy, let's call him Joey,

  • it's entering Joey's brain...it's being taken in by a set of neurons called

  • mirror neurons but you don't believe in neuron neurons, then you don't even need this...

  • it's basically soaking in what he's seeing in the nonverbal signals of another person.

  • That's the crucial thing, those seven signals...he takes them in, he can do a

  • couple things...number one, and I can tell you all the areas if you want to know

  • him in the Q&A, but basically he's mapping little Jude's

  • intention, he's mapping his attention, and he's starting to create what's called

  • simulation. He's going to drive what he takes in from little Jude and it's going

  • to go down from these cortical mirror neuron areas and the superior temporal

  • sulcus (that biological motion area) map little Jude's intention, follow his

  • attention, take his emotional state, drive it down

  • through his insula (which is an area that goes from the cortical region down to

  • the limbic region, the brainstem, and down into his body)...he's going to feel in his

  • body, that's what resonance is, what's going on

  • in little Jude. Then the signals from the body come back up through lamina one,

  • layer one of the spinal cord, and the tenth cranial nerve (the vagus nerve)...

  • ...those things all push up in various ways to the insula which takes this bodily

  • state up into the middle part of this prefrontal region area

  • we talked about right here, and the first thing it does is it maps out in Joey,

  • what's going on in my body? What am I feeling?

  • ...and then right adjacent to that, he does this thing where he goes, "If I'm feeling

  • this, this is what I'm feeling"...so that's called interoception (perception of his

  • interior)...then just literally a hair breadth away from that it goes, "Gosh, if

  • I'm having pounding in my chest right now and a churning in my stomach,

  • I wonder if little Jude is feeling scared". So, it's saying there's a

  • simulation in my body that is not mine, it's from my perception. This is when you

  • get burn out, when you don't do that... that's the burnout part. You've got to say,

  • "Oh I see, I'm open to what other people are feeling because I've learned to

  • distinguish...my body is like an antenna and because I feel another person's

  • suffering, it doesn't mean I'm the suffering one". So, if you're, if you're not

  • taught this, yeah of course you can get burn out and what do people do they just

  • shut themselves down from other people's minds...you lose mindsight. So now,

  • in this area right here, these are the mindsight circuits are right here

  • literally behind your forehead, you then go, "Oh, my body is feeling this. I wonder

  • if little Jude is feeling that"...and then you start developing all those layers of

  • empathy, right here. Empathy is, remember, a third of what mindsight is, insight into

  • myself, empathy for others, and I'm going to differentiate but then link...so mind-

  • sight is insight, empathy, and integration. Roots of Empathy is teaching mindsight

  • skills without even using that term perhaps and what you're doing then is

  • allowing Joey to massively integrate his brain. Mindsight circuits of insight,

  • empathy, and integration literally are taking this area of the brain,

  • linking cortex, limbic area, brainstem, body and the social world into one...and

  • you know what the outcome of such an integration is? You know what integration

  • made visible is? It's kindness and compassion. That's what's going to happen

  • when we've taken the time to give programs like, let's say Roots of Empathy

  • or relationships like actual Jude is having with Liz, when we take the time to have

  • integration in relationships and we develop integration in the brain, what

  • you do is you can develop communities that are filled with kindness and

  • compassion. People don't have to burnout, they can realize itself as a plural verb,

  • that we are all deeply interconnected with each other...and I don't mean in some

  • kind of airy-fairy way...I mean literally we're all interconnected. We are a part

  • of energy and information flow that is happening, not just now with all these

  • bodies that are alive now, but we are related to the ancestors that were here

  • before on this land...and for people who will be in this building 200 years from

  • now, when all of the nodes that are these bodies we live in are now gone, the

  • system will continue because the system is really the self. The system we're in

  • is the self and we have many, many nodes and if you start living like that, life

  • becomes bigger, life becomes more connected, life actually becomes more

  • meaningful. So if meaning and connection are what you're looking for and

  • resilience and empathy and insight and having a more integrated life are what

  • you're looking for, Roots of Empathy gives you the roots of how that can be

  • created because you're stimulating all this integration within and between...and

  • think about having a world that can be kinder and more compassionate...wouldn't

  • that be a great world to live in and to leave for future generations? So thank

  • you very much for your kind attention.

  • (Clapping)

Thank you. It''s really an honour to be here with you today.

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