Lesson 4
Imaginative Empathy

LESSON 4 OUTLINE

  1. PREPARATION


  2. START LESSON: Welcome

  3. Check-in

  4. Q and A

  5. Presentation

  6. Empathy Circle - Exercises

  7. Full Group Debrief (30 min)

      1. Share Insights and Learnings from Exercises

      2. Review What We Did in Todays Lesson

      3. Give Assignments

        1. Session Feedback Form and Evaluation

        2. Empathy Buddy Call

        3. Reading assignments.

      4. etc.


Lesson 3: Imaginative Empathy,

Development Notes

    • Imaginative empathy.

    • Breakout rooms: Do the Empathy Circle and;

      • Identify: Imaginative Empathy

          • Role play? who? people in conflict. imagine being

              1. imagine being the person

              2. Imagine being in the other persons role.

              3. imagine being yourself in the future

              4. remember a past event

              5. imagine being an animal

      • We usually do not do imaginative empathy role playing in the empathy circle.

      • with the role playing we can sense a distinct difference between the different facets.

      • here we will do double empathy and imaginative empathy. we will role play and use empathic listening.

      • In the Empathy Circle: how is imaginative empathy used in the empathy circle?

      • one example is in conflict resolution and role playing a person that can not take part. for example a family

      • it is not clear how we move from direct empathy to imaginative empathy.

      • what is the empathic part of imaginative empathy? it is sensing the feelings that come up for you in that imagination. You are give a scenario and you start bringing up feelings around it or associated with it.


The typical empathy circle is people talking about a topic or what is alive for them. A layer that can be added to this is for participants to take on roles and have a dialogue speaking from these roles.

Short Empathy Circle 1 (30 min)

A regular short empathy circle for participants to experience the typical empathy circle. This topic taps into participants imagining themselves in the future as well.

· Possible Topic?:

o How I imagine myself in the future?

o How I imagine myself in 10 years?

Empathy Circle 2: Role Play - be a concept. (30 min)

Topic: need a topic for the part to talk about?

  • Person 1 - Be imaginative empathy,

  • Person 2 - Be Bias

  • Person 3 - Be Self Empathy

  • Person 4 - Be Fear

  • Person 5 – Be ?

Empathy Circle 3: Role Play 2 - be a family in conflict? need a topic for them to discuss? (30 min)

Topic: ? Where to go for vacation? each has a different place they want to go.

  • Person 1 - Father

  • Person 2 - Mother

  • Person 3 - Sibling 1

  • Person 4 - Sibling 2

  • Person 5 - Sibling 3