A Questionnaire Measuring Parents ' Self Compassion Of Parents Using A Likert Scale With 29 Items

Within literature, Compassion has been described in many ways though very few descriptions have agreed on how it is best identified (Volpintesta 2011). Crowther et al (2013) describe compassion as a deep emotion that is felt by the individual practitioner allowing them to understand what the patient may be experiencing. Nussbaum (2003) argues that compassion goes beyond just understanding and identifying that emotion, it requires the practitioner to produce a response to the feeling or emotion in order to improve the situation. Dewar (2011) points out that compassion is not only about the recognition of the patients suffering but includes small

This paper will provide information on how compassion fatigue has been underplayed in pass years and current clinical

Dalai Lama once said “Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive.” But how does one learn how to love or feel compassion for others? People all around the world wonder why the feel compassion for others. Most people feel compassion because it helps them understand how others are feeling so they can respond appropriately to a certain situation. Barbara Lazear Ascher, a former attorney and a current author, focused on compassion and how it is developed by people. Ascher’s purpose is to show that compassion is not something that you are born with, it is something that you have to learn and practice throughout your lifetime. A way to practice compassion is when you see homeless. Ascher’s reaches her

Compassion, by definition, is a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering. In our modern society, compassion plays a major role in the act of kindness. Many people believe that doing a good deed is a selfless act since they do not get nothing in return. Others believe that doing a good deed to make you feel good about yourself is selfish. It is a theory that causes you to ponder on the purpose of compassion. In Barbara Lazear Ascher’s essay, On Compassion, she contemplates this theory. By using a variety of writing techniques, Ascher is able to share her views on compassion in way that speaks to the audience.

“On Compassion” exhibits the changes in which humans have encountered that contributed to the trait of care and compassion in us

“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss (...) These people have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen” (Elisabeth Kubler-Ross). Compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern make mankind beautiful, but it also makes it defenseless . When one has concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others, he takes sacrifices, risks, and lives with uncertainty. When man is compassionate, he lives a vulnerable life. Love and compassion bring out the beauty in mankind, but they can also bring out its weaknesses. Because of man’s compassion, he

"I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will " (ch. 23 pg. 280) This quote intensifies Jane’s transitional character from her former ruled life to her now independent life. The metaphor of the bird tells an allusion as unlike a bird she has no entrapment and she can move around whereas as a bird has a cage trapping its freedom.

In one study, researchers observed children in two different home lives. Children who were raised in a physically and/or emotionally abusive home, or who had parents that reacted to wrong-doing with anger and harsh punishment often showed significantly less compassion to others in multiple aspects of their lives. On the reverse side, children raised in a home where compassion for others and themselves was showed on a regular basis, and where their wrong-doings were corrected with understanding and communication, grew up to share and emit those same philosophies in their own lives

The argument that “the greatest threat to one’s own humanity is indifference to the suffering of others” is accurate, because compassion for each other is what brings one’s humanity closer together.

In his book, Beyond Religion, the Dalai Lama suggests there are positive qualities that exist naturally in all human beings. When expressing the term, basic human values, he is referring to qualities of patience, contentment, self-discipline, generosity, forgiveness, and compassion. Of these values, the Dalai Lama stresses compassion to be one of the more important aspects of our human values. The Dalai Lama describes the importance of compassion in avoidance of selfishness and states, "when compassion, or warm-heartedness, arises in us and shifts our focus away from our own narrow self-interest, it is as if we open an inner door"(45). Compassion reduces the anxiety of fear, boosts our confidence and brings us greater inner strength.

Building on this idea of dismissing unhealthy thoughts of oneself in order to promote positive transformation, a person has to be able to be compassionate when reflecting on who

Compassion is a crucial aspect of nursing; it involves seeing the patients as more than just a medical problem. Patients look to nurses as a source of comfort to help them deal with their emotions and understand their medical problems. In Norway, a study was conducted to find the role of compassion in nursing and

Empathy is an innate trait that all humans have and it is the one that we most readily feel, while compassion is a feeling that must be acquired. Ascher astutely points out that “empathy is the mother of compassion” (par.13). In this noteworthy parallel, Ascher compares empathy to a nurturing mother and compassion to the fruit of her labor. Like a mother who has an inherent instinct to protect and teach her young, so too does one have an innate understanding and sensitivity to the feelings and experiences of another, and it is only from these life experiences that the birth of a new awareness is brought forth in the form of compassion. Similar to a mother’s tutelage, Ascher describes compassion as a “learned” behavior that allows one to consciously act upon the distress of others by actively alleviating it. According to Ascher, “Compassion is not a character trait like a sunny disposition. It must be learned, and it is learned by having adversity at our window…” (par.13). In other words, true compassion can only be learned when one is faced with it every day of ones life and that once it becomes “familiar”, only then it can become identifiable and conjure empathy.

Philosophers have debated for centuries the question “Are humans are selfish or selfless?” There are two main arguments for debating human nature, ethical egoists and ethical altruists. Ethical egoists believe that “even though we can act in others’ interests because we are concerned for others, we ought always to act in our own interest” (Solomon et al 2012 p. 460). Ethical altruists believe quite the opposite; ethical altruism is the belief that “people ought to act with each other’s interests in mind” (Solomon et al 2012 p. 461). In discussing the four theories, psychological egoism, psychological altruism, ethical egoism, and ethical altruism, with my husband, there was not a clear dividing line for whether humans are selfish or selfless in nature. After much debate, we concluded that humans are born ethical egoists; however, ethical altruists are made through proper training, care, and nurture.

Humans are a very confusing species with a multitude of different things that impact their everyday lives. The question that is raised through many different situations is if the human species is naturally aggressive or compassionate. This question is one of the most complicated that is posed in today’s society. With so many different things in today’s society representing both aggression and compassion many people wonder which one of these qualities naturally is present in humans. Throughout the world many different compassionate and aggressive acts are completed every day. I personally believe that humans are naturally compassionate. Humans as a whole do not want suffering, and a good portion of the world would be completely content with a peaceful compassionate world. While the humans are a complicated species this paper will display the theories of compassion by David Hume, biologist Franz De Waal, and many other different sources who are speaking on the topic of compassion.