Empathy In Health And Social Care

Empathy is a two way process, its about trying to fully understand what your client is saying and feeling and also showing your understanding to your client.

Most common supports provided by Human Services professionals now are counseling, advocacy, and care giving. Having empathy is essential for all Human Service professionals, when working with their clients. “Empathy involves the willingness and ability to truly understand a client’s beliefs, thoughts, feelings, and experiences from the client’s own perspective” (Martin, 2007). Being able to understand that most times when an individual is in a crisis, they are only responding naturally to the traumas in their lives will enable the Human Services professional to assist their client more effectively.

Daniel H. Pink once said, “Empathy is about standing in someone else’s shoes, feeling with his or her heart, seeing with his or her eye. Not only is empathy hard to outsource and automate but it makes the world a better place”. This quote is explaining the basics of empathy. Empathy is seeing a problem or life in general, from another person’s of view. It allows us to understand another and overall helps make the world a better place.

What is empathy? Different people have identified different definitions for empathy. Adler, R., G., R., & Sevigny, A. define empathy as “the ability to re-create another person’s perspective, to experience the world from the other’s point of view” (2015, p. 50). Theresa Wiseman identified four qualities of empathy: “perspective taking, staying out of judgment, recognizing emotions in people and communicating that” (as cited in Brown, 2013). What do these definitions have in common? They both include the idea that empathy requires the power to place yourself in another person’s shoes.

Empathy refers to the ability to recognize how others are feeling emotionally, whether it be happy, sorrowful, or any other mental state. From To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Atticus Finch, the main character’s father, contextually describes empathy as “understand[ing] a person [when one] consider[s] things from [another’s] point of view” (30). Atticus’s implementation of this empathic principle foreshadows his own need to apply empathy in his dealings with the defendant of a court case, Tom Robinson. By doing so, Atticus creates a bond with Tom, constructing a stronger drive to advance through the trial, in addition to presenting a tangible significance to readers of understanding others. This essential quality of empathy is unique to humans, creating both ease and conflict in how humans as a whole execute a pursuit of justice.

Empathy is defined as the ability to communicate an understanding of a client’s feelings, and is a crucial component of the helping relationship (Boggs. 2011, p.106). Empathy is an essential concept to nursing practice as it allows the nurse to gain perspective in order to provide appropriate actions and interventions significant to that patient’s individual experience. In Tilda Shalof’s “A Nurses’ Story”, the author, a registered nurse in the intensive care unit (ICU), struggles with a particularly difficult patient case and must reflect upon her own values and subsequent judgments in order to provide adequate nursing care.

Nurses are always the ones being close to the patient the most in any clinical settings. Clinical skills are crucial in providing the best treatment and health care but not enough to make one a good nurse. Beside clinical skills, I believe empathy also play a major role in nursing practice. According to Potter and Perry (2013), “empathy is the ability to understand and accept another person’s reality, accurately perceive feelings, and communicate this understanding to other” (p. 320). To understand the definition of empathy, we have to put ourselves in patient’s situation and try to understand what they are going through. Not only we, as nurses, provide physical care to patients but we also go beyond our duty to support and improve their emotional

Though all of the characteristics listed are of great value, empathy is the most important characteristic to me. To have empathy, one must truly put themselves in the patient's position. I feel that empathy and love are connected, meaning that you cannot have one without the other. If a physician has empathy and love for a patient, he treat the patient as if he is treating himself or his own family. I feel that having empathy can lead to having each of the characteristics found in successful medical students. If you have empathy, you will want the best for each patient. That will lead you to have discipline, integrity, maturity, and intelligence. These attributes will lead you to study hard and gain intelligence. Intelligence will lead to confidence

When someone has empathy if gives them the ability to look at the situation from the perspective of the client. According to Martin (2014), “empathy in a counseling relationship, involves the ability and willingness to experience a client’s beliefs, thoughts, and feelings through the client’s personal lens” (63). Consequently, by having empathy it will allow you to properly evaluate the whole situation, and provide sustainable help. An empathic heart will promote active listening skills. Being empathic will give you an engaging mindset. Martin states (2014), “Active listening counseling relationship also includes behaviors such as maintaining direct eye contact and observing the client’s body language. This will make for better

Empathy is a capacity utilized by person-centered therapists to factor out understanding of the client emotions. Empathy is absolutely exclusive to sympathy in this sympathy is quite often noticeable as feeling sorry for the client whereas empathy shows understanding and allows for the client to additional open up (Seligman,

“Empathy is a respectful understanding of what others are experiencing. Instead of offering empathy, we often have a strong urge to give advice or reassurance and to explain our own position or feeling. Empathy, however, calls upon us to empty our mind and listen to others with our whole being,” said by Marshall Rosenberg. As a nurse it is a part of your duties to incorporate empathy in the patient care. Nurses care for multiple patients and need to tend to each individual’s needs in order to improve the quality of care. Empathy is an essential intellectual trait that opposes intellectual narrow-mindedness. Intellectual empathy is essential in understanding the patients, being able to communicate with the patients, and being able to provide

Empathy: the concept that allows people to understand and address other people's problems. Empathy allows people to experience someone's pain/problems without becoming overwhelmed by their own feelings or ignoring the importance of the situation they have been presented with.

The first student describes a scenario where he was able to become a better physician because he understood the young child’s feelings and sense of fear. In his description, the author talks of the young boy being alone each time he came to visit, an experience that was directly in contrast to his childhood experiences. The author feels pity for the young boy, as he can understand his fears particularly when left alone in a strange place. The young boy’s parents seem unconcerned and this is a main motivator for the author’s actions.

I do not ask the wounded person how he feels; I myself become the wounded person.” This quote by Walt Whitman truly demonstrates the appropriate behavior when treating patients. It is vital, that as a nurse, one must strive to be empathetic to provide top patient care. To be empathetic is to not pity the patient, but to feel and value what that person is feeling. This is a great level of human compassion that assists in therapeutic care. By exhibiting empathy in the nursing practice, one can improve the quality of care for the patient as well as increasing the quality of the nursing profession.

In addition, to using empathy and genuineness you could use is clarifying your role to the client (Kirst-Ashman and Hull, 2015). Providing your client with your role clearly will help in overcoming the barriers they put up. A client learning that although they were mandated to work with you seeing that you are there to help make improvements can help with the reluctance. Also, that perhaps will tie in both empathy and genuineness is allowing the client to figure out what s/he would like you the social worker to do for them (Kirst-Ashman and Hull, 2015). Asking questions allowing the client to show or explain what you can do for them will show that they are empowered. This empowerment may help will the barriers the clients has with receiving