Scaling Empathy Part II with Dr. Karen Yeh, PsyD, Advisor to Flourish Tech and Paul Chen, Cofounder and CEO of Flourish Tech
The Most Important Thing
Learn how to enhance your empathy skills with Flourish in order to improve your life and the lives of those around you.
About Paul Chen
Paul Chen (陈扬洋) was born in Chengdu, China, and immigrated to Norfolk, VA, as a teenager. Paul is the CEO and cofounder of Flourish Tech, a Silicon Valley venture-backed startup seeking to become the world’s best platform for mental and emotional fitness. Paul is also a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations, nominated by former Secretary of State Dr. Condi Rice.
About Dr. Karen Yeh
Dr. Karen Yeh, Psy.D., is a clinical psychologist with nearly 20 years of experience. In her practice, she has seen the power of empathy work for many individuals with relationship problems. In 2010 she started her training with Dr. David Burns, Stanford psychiatrist and bestselling author of Feeling Good: A New Mood Therapy, to specialize in his cognitive self-help approach to mental health. Dr. Yeh established a center in Fremont, CA, in 2014 to train other therapists and serve the larger community through public education programs and direct clinical services through in-person and teletherapy private sessions. Feeling Good Whole Health takes a holistic approach to psychotherapy, addressing patients’ mind, brain, body, and soul health, to support the work of cognitive behavioral therapy. Dr. Yeh holds a Psy.D. in Clinical Psychology from CSPP Alliant International University, an Ed.M. in Counseling & Consulting Psychology from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and a B.S. in Biology from MIT.
About Flourish
Flourish Tech is building the world’s first expert guided peer coaching community to help people sharpen their relationship skills. Our methodology is evidence-based and comes from research at Stanford University. You can build and deepen trust with others by practicing role plays that simulate real life relationships.
Episode Overview:
In the last episode of Look Up! and first half of this conversation, we introduced the mental health crisis in America and evaluated some of the root causes behind it. We then began to discuss where we go from here. In this episode, I continue my conversation with Paul and Dr. Karen focusing first on the importance of empathy as a tool to combat the mental health crisis. We then dive into the ways in which empathy can be trained, the challenges that we face when dealing with someone who suffers from depression, and resetting the rules of engagement for our relationships.
My Favorite Quotes:
“One of the evaluations that we run at the clinic, we call it SPANS – we attend to the person’s spirituality, physical activity, nutrition, and sleep. All of these lend to an individual’s mental health.”
“Having bad relationships is as likely to cause someone to be clinically depressed as is having a heart attack.”
“Few people know that empathy can be trained AND empathy is best taught experientially.”
“What is empathy? It’s really being able to join the person; to walk a mile in their shoes.”
“Empathy is making that decision that you are going to jump in the well with them; get in there, get muddy and get dirty, but also know that that’s how you are going to get them out sooner.”
“For the most part, you can’t really catch depression. But I say that lightly, because if being with someone who is depressed doesn’t affect you, then you aren’t connected. So it’s going to affect you, but not in the same way.”
“Are we ready for a different vision of what technology can do for us?”
“We’re trying to reset the initialization (the rules of engagement) for a group of people, so that before they actually engage, they have the right mindset, behavior, and habits to engage effectively.”
“Empathy takes work because we like our point of view; we want someone to adopt our point of view before we adopt theirs, BUT is the relationship worth it?”
Episode Breakdown:
00:00 – We are social animals – the importance of empathy
10:00 – How Flourish Trains Empathy
20:00 – “Joining” someone with depression through empathy
25:00 – Paul shares an example of empathy in action
30:00 – Resetting the rules of engagement
35:00 – Closing thoughts
Episode Links:
Paul’s Info
Dr. Karen’s Info
Flourish
Other Resources & References
Feeling Good Whole Health Center
The State of Mental Health in America
Marc’s Info:
Marc Weinstein, host of the Look Up! Podcast is a public speaker for corporations, universities, and conferences. Click here to view past talks and to book Marc
