ABSTRACT
Human beings are by nature social animals and reliant upon creating and maintaining positive relationships within their family, group, and community to protect their safety and emotional wellbeing. This ethical, compassionate, and altruistic attitude is not a recent development (Boehm, 2(08) but one that has been present for at least 45,000 years. The evolution of the human species has favored altruistic individuals capable of supportive relationships, starting at birth (Bowlby, 1979) and continuing throughout life (Spinelli, 2007). These reciprocal relationships are central to the effective and healthy functioning of individuals, groups, and society (Keltner, Haidt, and Shiota, 2006). The ability to empathize is fundamental to building successful human relationships and has been described at two levels: first, cognitive empathy, in which an observer assesses the behavior or appearance of another person, and thus is able to infer the person's mental state (Baron-Cohen and Wheelwright, 2004); and second, emotional empathy, in which an observer identifies with and responds to another person's emotional state (Eisenberg and Miller, 1987). While the presence of empathy is generally regarded positively, growing evidence indicates that people with high levels of empathy are prone to developing burnout, compassion fatigue, and secondary traumatic stress due to their ability to accurately pick up and empathize with other people's distress (Adams, Boscarino, and Figley, 2006; Figley, 1995; Saakvitne and Pearlman, 1996). Research using brain imaging has discovered the neurological processes involved in the creation and maintenance of empathy (Baron-Cohen, 2011; Damasio, 2003; Gilbert, 2005).
