[okreallywtf]

Except when people lack empathy, they call it political correctness. My problem is I have not found a good way to teach empathy to someone who is lacking it, repeating someone elses story doesn't work and its hard to get other people sometimes to actively experience the same things that I have (even if its just listening to a story on the radio).

[Chris_Jay]

In children, reading fiction is supposed to be one thing that helps empathy.

There's also something called 'decompression therapy' that supposedly helped youths with psychopathy become less psychopathic.

The theory as I understand it goes like this: Everyone has a 'sphere of empathy', they empathize with those inside it but not outside. To a psychopath that boundary is their own skin, to a vegetarian it includes all animals, to a pescatarian all land animals... you get the idea. What makes people's sphere of empathy expand is feeling safe and empathized with, it allows them to risk the vulnerability of empathizing with someone who might betray them. But it's like voluntarily relaxing a muscle - the process is slow, and while the right pressure can help the problem point relax, too much pressure will make it tense up more.