Compassionate Reasoning

Book excerpt: There are many people across the planet who work every day for the sake of others but who are ensconced in exhausting work with dangerous and difficult situations of conflict. These people are often heroic bridge-builders and creators of peaceful societies, and they have a common set of cultivated moral character traits and psychosocial skills. They tend to be kinder, more reasonable, more self-controlled, and more goal-oriented to peace. They are united by a particular set of moral values and the emotional skills to put those values into practice. The aim of this book is to articulate the best combination of those values and skills that lead to personal and communal sustainability, not burnout and self-destruction. The book pivots on the observable difference in the mind-and proven in neuroscience imaging experiments-between destructive empathic distress, on the one hand, and, on the other, joyful, constructive, compassionate care. .