THERE’S THIS CONVENTION in book acknowledgments in which the families and loved ones of authors get thanked last. What a silly convention. I subvert that dominant paradigm. First and always, I thank my husband, best friend, and empathic partner, Tino Plank. My career as a writer could not have moved forward without your support. I thank my son, Eli McLaren; my family, my nieces and nephews, my grandnieces and grandnephews; and my closest friends. I also thank my late mother for doing everything she could to raise a tornado wrapped in an enigma wrapped in emotions—this was fullcontact parenting.
I thank all of the empaths and hyperempaths who have worked with me, challenged me to come up with better skills, and helped me realize that I wasn’t alone in the world or in my empathic way of framing human interactions. I thank my many neurodiverse and autistic friends, as well as the parents of autistic children, for inviting me into an intensely empathic community and helping me understand empathy at a much deeper level. And I thank the men and boys who show me every day that empathy never was, and never will be, a gendered trait.
I thank my darling Tami Simon and the folks at Sounds True, whose outsider status allows me to be an al fresco academic doing original theory. Haven Iverson, in particular, is a sensitive, pointed, and empathic editor who offers me her ears, her mind, and her heart. Writing for her and with her is an honor. Being an empath is easier because the people at Sounds True have treated my work and my unique approach as legitimate and worth hearing. As I stand on the margins of a highly contentious cluster of academic disciplines whose approach to emotions and empathy is—in my empathic opinion—still struggling with fundamental misunderstandings, I appreciate the fact that my voice and my life’s work are being treated as valid by this merry band. Thank you!
I also thank the many people I see who avoid empathy and gleefully create enemies—because although creating a distrusted or hated other is a wonderful way to generate internal cohesion in a group, it’s a process that always backfires. Groups and people who engage in othering help me understand just how crucial fully inclusive and non-othering empathy is to a functional community, to functional activism, and to the empathic evolution of humankind.
I thank all of the authors and researchers whose work I reference and learn from every day. When I have intense questions or feel as if I just don’t get this world, I enter your words and feel into your work, your ideas, your brilliance, your struggles, your arguments, your confusions, and the depth of your humanity. You make a difference, and I thank you.
And of course, I thank you for supporting my work in the world. As I wrote this book, I continually thought of you, and I used my Einfühlung capacities to imagine you reading alongside me, arguing with me, pointing out inconsistencies, and whispering all of your hopes, concerns, and emotions into my ears. Thank you for keeping me company as I wrote this book. I appreciate you!