Recent Empathy Directive

Last week, I asked my Empathy group members think about a time they felt empathy for someone in the last 3 months and to create an image about that. It was interesting to see who each person felt empathy for. One patient, who was new to sex offender treatment, chose a character from a movie. He later admitted that it was safer for him to empathize with someone in a movie rather than in real life. Another patient empathized with the parents of a child who had been killed which he saw on the news. He was able to relate how those parents felt to how the parents of his victims felt. I'll use this Art Therapy directive on occasion to help the patients think about times they have felt empathy and to explore it a little more.