What Is This Feeling That I Have for Myself and for Others? Contemporary Perspectives on Empathy, Compassion, and Self-Compassion, and Their Absence

Abstract We begin our adventures into the neuroscience of empathy, compassion, and self-compassion with origins and definitions of these critical social constructs. We explore the numerous variations and nuances for our understanding of each of these terms including conceptualizations from the most prominent researchers in the field. We then launch into a polemical dialogue between the authors not only to dive to greater depths into the underlying permutations of each of these terms but also to endeavor to engage the reader in the excitement that a refinement of these concepts brings to the research community and to stimulate creative thinking, further dialogue, and, hopefully, more research into the neuroscience of empathy, compassion, and self-compassion.