Empathy has exceptional PR. In leadership, coaching, HR and cultural work, it is often treated as a moral trump card: more empathy means better people, better organizations, better everything! But that equation is incomplete.

In its healthy form, empathy helps us understand another person’s inner reality without losing our own center. In its unhealthy form, it becomes emotional fusion, moral theater, or self-image maintenance. A blog about the Dark Face of Empathy and how to lighten it up.