EMPATHICA is a software program designed to help people understand and resolve conflicts. It is based on the hope that increasing empathy (mutual understanding of values and emotions) between people can help to overcome impasses in disputes in many domains: organizations, politics, personal relationships, and so on. EMPATHICA uses the idea of Cognitive-Affective Maps (CAMs, Value Maps) developed by Paul Thagard in collaboration with Thomas Homer-Dixon, Scott Findlay, and others. These maps derive from ideas about emotional cognition described in Thagard's book Hot Thought.