Chapters
Shownotes Transcript
Welcome to Stories of Impact. I'm your host, Tavia Gilbert, and along with journalist Richard Sergay, every first and third Tuesday of the month, we share conversations about the art and science of human flourishing. In our last episode with Dr. David Addis, Heather Bissler, Dr. Liz Grant, and Dr. Corin Reed, we explored the role of compassion in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals,
and learned that the SDGs were motivated by a compassionate desire to end human suffering across a variety of sectors. This week we're back with these four researchers as they offer more personal insight about what draws them to study the science of compassion.
Let's begin with Dr. David Addis, Director of the Focus Area for Compassion and Ethics at the Task Force for Global Health. Compassion, if it's only concerned about alleviating suffering, that's important because alleviating suffering is an important component of promoting flourishing.
But we and others believe that compassion should not just stop there, that compassion can also promote human flourishing and that the goal of compassion is not just alleviating the negative of suffering, but helping to create the conditions for all of us to flourish. So whether it's medicine or whether it's the SDGs or Compassion in Global Health,
We as a community are reimagining the potential of compassion to promote human flourishing. And in fact, I think in healthcare, compassion is the essential link between alleviating suffering of the patient and promoting their flourishing. That without compassion, we can alleviate symptoms, but compassion is required to actually promote human flourishing.
Dr. Corin Reid, Professorial Fellow at the Global Health Academy at the University of Edinburgh, agrees that the story of compassion doesn't have to have suffering at its heart. I think often when we think about compassion, it's about suffering. And that's a very important part of the compassion story. But the bigger piece really is about understanding that human flourishing is about
supporting each and every person to bring their best, to have a life well lived, to be resilient in adversity. All of those kinds of qualities that we think of as being part of human flourishing are really also part of the compassion story. So for me, compassion goes beyond the prevention or response to suffering to a real appreciation of our shared humanity, that for each of us to
to flourish, supporting others to flourish is part of our shared humanity. We are all stronger together. Dr Liz Grant, University of Edinburgh Assistant Principal and Professor and Director of the Global Health Academy says, "I believe that compassion is the instrument that allows human flourishing."
You alleviate suffering in order that a person or a system can flourish. Compassion encourages us to take action to alleviate the suffering that we see in ourselves, in each other, in the world.
and to understand why that suffering is there. We see it, but if we practice it, we also see everything else through it. And to do that is to change who we are. Compassion encourages us to see our common humanity, to see ourselves as brothers and sisters. The journey of compassion is as important, if not more, than the acts of compassion.
and together they enable us to know who we are in the world, they enable the world to become the world that we envisage where everyone flourishes together.
What makes compassion such a powerful catalyst? One of the things that compassion does that's interesting is it fills the space between. Now what I mean by that is in the world today we create boundaries and borders and barriers to protect, to isolate, to contain divisions, to create an us and them.
Compassion has this strange capacity to fill that space, to give us the bridge to come together. I think that's one of the most powerful things that compassion does, to fill the space between if we allow it to. And that also gives me hope that there is a place for everyone where compassion can fill the space in them, maybe separate it and segregate it so everyone can feel that they can move forward.
Heather Bissler, Senior Compassion Advisor at the Focus Area for Compassion and Ethics at the Task Force for Global Health, highlights the transformational link between compassion, health, and flourishing. What is the relationship between compassionate care in healthcare settings and human flourishing?
It is a critical element of human flourishing. When we're able to design our health services around compassion and deliver them with compassion, it certainly enables communities to flourish. I think another thing that compassion does is really center
human ways of healing, of being in relationship with one another. We also need to think about how healing this one person can have ripple effects throughout a community. There's sort of this intangible process that happens when you are
are showing up in compassion when you act with compassion and the way that people respond to you. And it begins to have this ripple effect throughout a community, throughout a family. And so the more that we recognize the importance of compassion,
the more that we train in compassion, the more that we are centering this principle, this value. As a collective then we begin to act from this place. How do health care services that are designed and delivered around compassion support human flourishing? Dr. Grant answers: There's quite a large science around the health benefits and they fall into different components.
People who have seen compassion being expressed to them and have experienced compassion speak about how it reduces stress, how it lowers their anxiety, how it can enable them to take steps and move forward. There's a major science and major studies around
compassionate environments to support those who have mental health challenges and how that reduces risk, risk of cardiovascular disease, risk of strokes. There's work around compassion and dementia, how those who have dementia, if they are shown compassion
even if the dementia is very severe, they recognise that because it's fundamental, isn't it? We know when we are being cared for. We know when our suffering is being alleviated because another is taking the action to do that. And it makes us feel that we are not alone in the world. If we simply said compassion is good for your health, we know health outcomes would be improved.
Dr. Addis adds that better outcomes for patients aren't the only benefits of compassion in health care. The health benefits of compassion include happier clinicians, clinicians who feel like they're actually fulfilling their compassionate impulse. They're there because of compassion. There have been some studies showing that where health systems really take compassion seriously and promote it,
They do better in terms of their bottom line. Incorporating compassion into healthcare systems can be as simple as listening, says Dr. Grant. One of the most compassionate actions that we can do to be fully present, to say to another, you are so important, I give you my full attention. That's compassion.
Compassion also around when we are in a room with others, being aware of who's here. Is there suffering that's not being spoken out? So some of that is about actually sometimes speaking, sometimes just being with the person, sometimes being in the ear to listen. The taking action to alleviate may not fix the problem necessarily.
But it may, in that action, may simply be to say to somebody, I'm with you and together we're working on this. But also being compassionate to ourselves, which we sometimes quite often forget. And that's about just, I think, about understanding our place in the world, understanding the value of others, but understanding that we are of value and that we give to others by understanding ourselves.
the value that we bring and being able to do that purposely. Humans may be primed for compassion because it is a fundamental element of human development, says Dr. Reid.
Even if you start thinking about the very first experience of compassion, it's really in utero. Expectant parents start to modify their behaviour almost as soon as they know that they're pregnant in terms of changing what they eat and their lifestyle. And we know that those compassionate actions have ongoing effects on the newborn and child and then adult's immune system and their emotion regulation systems. And so we know that even from that very earliest stage
almost tacit compassion that happens before a child is born. It can have lifelong impacts. So there are many things to speak for compassion as a vital part of our human existence. Dr Grant and Dr Addis agree that compassion is essential to being human. There is a number of studies that are showing that compassion, like memory, is probably
in the brain. It's there, it's part of our DNA, it's a survival mechanism. And a number of studies have looked at when do we see compassion and where do you see it? When do you see it? There are studies that show children from very early years, one or two, are compassionate and react to compassionate actions. They can almost interpret something that is compassionate external to themselves and
MRI studies in the brain looking at different parts and seeing parts light up when people are shown compassionate actions or people showing actions that are cruel or not compassionate.
So there's been quite a lot of work in neuroscience thinking, what are the transmitters that allow us as people to be compassionate? Is it the same way as a mother's love for a child? Is it the way that we respond to protect and care to take away suffering? I think that compassion is both inherited. It's something that's part of our DNA. We would not have survived as a species if we hadn't responded differently.
to our fellow humans suffering with compassion. We may have an inherent capacity for compassion, and we see this in studies of very young children when they experience distress of another child comforting, wanting to help, wanting to alleviate that suffering.
Dr. Addis has been innovative in his approach to research around compassion. I was trained as an epidemiologist in the disease detective program at CDC. And so epidemiology, when you boil it down, is really the study of why things cluster in time and space. Normally, when you start with an unknown, you start with the epidemiology to understand what are the patterns.
How does something manifest? We think of disease, but we can also think of positive states like compassion. So we began asking the question, how is compassion distributed? When does it arise? From whom does it arise? And people respond to this idea of the epidemiology of compassion with some puzzlement. And so I asked them, do you experience compassion
in the same way from all people in all places and at all times? And they say, "No, of course not." Well, therefore, there's an epidemiology. It's distributed, it's clustered in a sense. So how is it clustered? In a sense, what are the risk factors? What are the factors that allow compassion to emerge?
And so we were very curious about trying to look into the utility of epidemiology as a way of understanding compassion, particularly at the population level or organizational level. Dr. Addis hopes that his research into the epidemiology of compassion will inspire other scientists to begin their own explorations of compassion.
He's enthusiastic about the studies that have already taken place, and he's eager to learn more from his colleagues. When I talk to my fellow epidemiologists about compassion, they say, oh, isn't that soft? That's just some emotion. There's no scientific validity to that.
And I point them to the neuroscientists who have studied the neural pathways associated with compassion. These are very rigorous studies. I would say that as an epidemiologist, neuroscientists are probably more rigorous scientifically than we are as epidemiologists.
There's a whole range of randomized clinical trials looking at the effects of compassion training. And they demonstrate that not only do these neural pathways get laid down as people practice compassion training, but they respond to suffering with much more empathy and they respond with more compassion. So that's a skill that can be cultivated.
There's a whole body of work showing that if people recall someone who offered them compassion, someone who nurtured them, when they're placed in the psychology laboratory and encounter someone who's suffering or an image of suffering, they respond with more compassion than someone who doesn't have that priming to provide themselves a sense of security and openness to others. So there's a whole range of
compassion science ranging from the neuroscience to organizational research. Dr. Addis' career in public health has been informed by his contemplative religious awareness, so he naturally thinks about compassion at the intersection of science and faith. He believes that those lenses can and should inform each other. Karen Armstrong, a theologian, has studied the major world religions
And her conclusion is that the one thing that makes us human, that all spiritual traditions highlight and emphasize, is compassion. And so I think at its depth, the science of compassion becomes a theology of compassion, or at least these two fields are in deep dialogue. As we
advance our understanding of the epidemiology of compassion, we need to be engaged with philosophers, with theologians to understand how their
perception of compassion, their understanding can be best studied through the tools of science to advance compassion throughout the world. So I do see a very strong link between the psychologies, the neuroscience, the theologies of compassion. Dr. Grant also views compassion as a path not only to improving healthcare systems and health outcomes, but to greater meaning and purpose.
Compassion is often associated with religion and in fact in every world religion belief system there's words that define or describe what we would call compassion and they'll be amplified through the religious rites and rituals. We've got something that's so central to humanity, something about how we live and be and have our being, how we care for each other. I think compassion helps us to value life.
to value our lives, to value others' lives. And one of the challenges we have today is that the things we value in life are often not life itself. It's everything else around it. It's money, it's circumstance, it's jobs, it's security, it's luxury goods or whatever. Compassion helps us to draw back into what matters. Who are we? Humanity couldn't survive without compassion. If we didn't care for each other,
And if we didn't take action to alleviate when we saw things going wrong, which is causing suffering, from time immemorial, we wouldn't be here. Reid is hopeful that a commitment to studying compassion will spark a transformative long-term impact and at scale.
You'll find biologists talking about compassion, sociologists talking about compassion, psychologists talking about compassion. There is lots of science around compassion. I think for me, what is absolutely critical is that the centrepiece does not shift, is that compassion is relational, it is caring but beyond caring, it must also include action.
I think the power, the scale is that collective compassion and that's missing. So I think those two elements we really haven't focused in on in any way. The model at the collective level I think is much more dynamic and has much more potential. What I'm really interested in is shifting our understanding of compassion from an evolutionary one to a revolutionary one. It tells us that it's both potent, powerful, powerful
and critical, essential to our survival but also our continued growth.
How do we make compassion an active, critical, timely force in change for good? So rather than thinking of it in an intergenerational arc, is really thinking about how do we draw together compassion from individuals into the collective so that it is an immediate force for change and for good? How do we develop those systems? How do we support others to develop those systems that are
recognize compassion, prioritize compassion, develop compassion by setting up systems that are fit for purpose for a compassionate lens so that it becomes an active and activating force in the now. Why is a focus on compassion at the collective level so vital? Dr. Reed says...
If you're working individually or you're working in silos, that's very hard for compassion to flourish there. And yet many of our systems are built that way and reward individual and isolated work or reward silos because they can progress more quickly. How can leaders, whether they're in public health, politics, business or elsewhere, make more space for compassion?
I think making sure that our values are visible is critical and having compassionate values as part of our systems is really key. At the moment, we're very much driven by efficiency rather than compassion. And the values that tend to sit in our mission statements are much more around efficiencies rather than the human side of things. But also I think we need to have systems that keep noticing things.
compassion and the value of compassion by telling the stories, the narratives of compassion. I think they are often missing in our systems, both in communities, but also in organisations, that we focus very much on economic outcomes. We focus very much on whether we've met our KPIs. Those KPIs are usually not around compassion. And so we don't have many narratives that help us understand the power of compassion. It is about trying to
lead from the top and then having a structure that allows people to lead compassionately from every level of the system. So if there is a very strong message from the top that a compassionate lens has some added value over perhaps simply an economic lens, then you'll find that at each level of the system, people will be prepared to act in that way, to step in those shoes, to follow that path. It's going to be critical that we lay out a map
that is easy to follow, that makes it feel possible to people to work in a different way. It's very much about a way of working rather than a single solution. It's how do we approach each other? How do we set up our communities? How do we layer our organizations? And how do we prioritize and privilege a lens that says compassion is valuable? Like Dr. Reid, Dr.
Dr. Grant is invested in developing the science of compassion, as well as how to activate that knowledge. So there's a whole community across the globe connected around thinking about compassion in action. And I think we can do it a couple of different ways, and we are working in these ways. One is about just making discussion about compassion real.
normalising that, coming back to the idea of permission giving, ensuring that there's an understanding that actually caring for each other is not something you do on the side as an offshoot, but is fundamental for life itself. There's also then the very practical thing, what is a sort of chain of compassion? What enables people to work together? Some of that is benchmarking compassion in organisations positively,
creating momentum incentives to be compassionate for and I'm not talking about individual compassion I'm about institutional compassion systems being designed compassionately compassion is about being together to do something if we can keep promoting the sense of togetherness matters then that enables a change human action to keep going to work together
Last week, the aim of our esteemed researchers was very clear: they wanted their research around compassion to increase awareness of its importance in the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. This week, the researchers' objective – and mine – is to encourage all of us to think about where we can make greater space for compassion in our own lives
Is it in listening to our families with greater attention? Is it in our businesses, acknowledging the humanity of our employees or colleagues? Do we have an opportunity to change or influence any system of which we are a part, so that it includes compassion? I'll be thinking of this myself, and looking for opportunities to deepen my own compassion wherever I might.
And I'll pay attention to how greater compassion helps me and the people around me flourish. Each one of us can make a difference. After all, Dr. Addis reminds us. Margaret Mead once famously said that you never doubt that a small group of people who are committed can change the world. In fact, it's the only thing that ever has.
We'll be back in two weeks with the first of two discussions about artificial intelligence and what religious leaders around the world believe are its potential benefits and its perils.
In the meantime, if you enjoy the stories we share with you on this podcast, please follow us and rate and review us. You can find us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and at storiesofimpact.org. And be sure to sign up for the TWCF newsletter at templetonworldcharity.org.
This has been the Stories of Impact podcast with Richard Sergay and Tavia Gilbert. Written and produced by TalkBox Productions and Tavia Gilbert. Senior producer Katie Flood. Music by Alexander Filippiak. Mix and master by Kayla Elrod. Executive producer Michelle Cobb. The Stories of Impact podcast is generously supported by Templeton World Charity Foundation.