Wayland Tragedy Sparks Completion of Compassion Model

What if a culture of compassion could serve as a levy, lessening the waves of violence and abuse that crash over communities across Massachusetts and the country?

It’s a question that has intrigued University of Wisconsin professor John LeCapitaine for a decade, but it’s one that took on new significance last summer when a graduate school friend, Malcolm Astley, suffered a heartbreaking tragedy.

The body of Astley’s 18-year-old daughter, , was found in a Wayland marsh on July 4 of last year. Police allege that her ex-boyfriend, fellow Wayland High School Class of 2011 graduate Nathaniel Fujita, murdered her.

On March 29 LeCapitaine, with Astley’s assistance, presented his Developmental Model of Compassion to a crowd of friends, academics and practitioners at Harvard Graduate School for Education’s Longfellow Hall in Cambridge, Mass.

“Working from this particular death … we can gradually unweave this thing and unweave it for the better of all of us,” Astley said during his introduction. “We have this underground war that we need to come to terms with within relationships, families and within society.”

Astley said that LeCapitaine envisioned his model “as one good antidote to the violence and abuse that invades many of our sectors today.”

Lauren Astley’s mother, Mary Dunne; Wayland Public Schools officials, including Superintendent Paul Stein; and Wayland Police Detective Ruth Backman were among the guests who listened as LeCapitaine explained why he believes compassion to be an essential part of human interaction and an important characteristic to build among children beginning at a young age.

LeCapitaine, a professor in the University of Wisconsin’s Department of Counseling and School Psychology, began his talk by asking audience members to call out words that describe compassion. Individuals responded with such diverse terms as connection, heart, caring, feeling and empathy. The breadth of responses highlighted LeCapitaine’s later assessment of compassion as a “complex kind of construct.”

“Why do we need compassion?” he asked. “To protect and save humankind … that’s ultimately where we would want to go.”

Developing compassion, LeCapitaine added, serves the purpose of preventing and disarming shame, while helping to build the capability to experience remorse.

Compassion, he added, can help prevent violent relationships and violence in general as a compassionate person exhibits a sense of responsibility for his/her actions as well as a capacity for remorse related to the consequences of those actions.

LeCapitaine outlined for audience members his three “Pillars of Developmental Compassion,” which include perspective-taking, empathy, and emotional development. He said that the process of helping a person become a “mature compassion” person should begin with children as young as 1 or 2 years old.

“Personal, psychological development is more important than academic development,” LeCapitaine said.

Perspective-taking describes a person’s ability to “take a detached view of a relationship”; empathy is described as “the ability to understand others’ feelings by experiencing the same emotion”; and emotional development involves a person’s ability to understand his/her own emotions while taking into account and remaining honest to personal values and convictions as well as the values and convictions of others.

LeCapitaine explained that a person who exhibits high-level behavior under all three pillars exhibits the behaviors of a “mature compassion” person.

Helping children develop those skills can involve a wide variety of resources, LeCapitaine said. Audience members during the Q&A portion of the presentation agreed the resources were varied, but communication and modeling emerged as common themes.

One audience member, a pediatrician, said he understood listening to be of utmost importance.

“[The presentation] gives me a perspective that you can teach compassion and you can prevent shame,” the pediatrician said. “The most important thing parents can do is listen. It’s a good preventative for violence and rage.”

Another attendee, who said she is involved in domestic violence services and prevention, addressed the importance of giving children a language to define their values and talk about their boundaries. She said young children are specifically instructed in ways to describe what they are thinking or feeling, but that instruction in language tapers off as children grow older.

The March 29 date for the conference was specifically chosen for its nearness to April 1,  Lauren Astley’s birthday. She would have been 19 years old this year and halfway through her second semester at Elon University in North Carolina.

“She would have cheered on the good action of our meeting together,” the invitation to the event read.

LeCapitaine dedicated his presentation to her memory, finishing his presentation with a slide reading, “We love you, Lauren, forever and ever.”

Astley told audience members that he didn’t know what the outcome of LeCapitaine’s research and developmental model would be, but he maintained hope that it could make an impact in preventing future violence.

Early in the event Astley asked the audience to join him in a responsive reading by Rev. Dr. Thandeka. That reading concluded with the words, “From within this world/my despair is transformed to hope/and I begin anew/the legacy of caring.”