https://www.lollydaskal.com/leadership/how-to-be-an-empathetic-leader/
Empathy can be defined as being moved by another individual’s experience and emotions as well as an effective means of understanding (Halpern, 2013).
Patients consider empathy as a key component of all therapeutic relationships as well as one of their main aspects of quality of care (Derksen, Bensing & Lagro-Janssen, 2013). Empathy is considered, by both the patient and health care professional, as the base of good communication during treatment sessions. Furthermore, it was found that an empathetic approach has a positive influence on patient satisfaction, adherence, decrease of anxiety and stress as well as outcomes and patient enablement (Derksen et al, 2013).
Empathy has always been one the main characteristics my clinical approach . I have found that when I genuinely try to understand what a patient is experiencing, the patient’s attitude towards the session immediately improves. The reason for this might be that when I ensure my patients feel heard and cared for, they feel the need to cooperate to showcase their gratitude.
Although the literature and my personal experiences confirm that empathy is effective and of great importance, there are certain concerns regarding an approach that is too empathetic. This will cause the therapist to lose his/her professional distance leading to a less desirable outcome (Derksen et al, 2013).
This was confirmed when I allowed too much empathy to influence the effectiveness of my assessment and treatment. During one of my treatment sessions with an intubated patient in the Cardio Thoracic ICU, I tried to empathize with his physical pain as I usually do. I had to posteriorly percuss the patient, but I allowed my emotions to influence the firmness of my percussions. This lead to a less effective outcome for my treatment session as I did not manage to completely clear the patient’s secretions.
Another incidence that made it clear that I tend to allow empathy to control my session, was during a supervision session at Tygerberg Hospital. I had to wake and assess my patient during which my supervisor pointed out that I was being too gentle. After the session she gave me feedback where she mentioned that even though empathy forms an important part of clinical practice, I should never allow it to influence the execution of my techniques.
With regards to future patient approaches I will ensure that I remain empathetic while still following my assessment and treatment plan. I will not allow my empathy to influence the firmness of my manual techniques, neither will I allow it to influence how I approach patients that are sleeping or in pain. I will set emotional boundaries and adhere to them to ensure this.
These past few months have been a great learning curve. I’ve had the opportunity to reflect on my clinical approach as well as adjust my means of treatment. I have come to realize that even though empathy is my greatest asset, I should not allow it to cloud my judgment and influence my efficacy as a physiotherapist.
Reference List
Halpern, J. (2003). What is clinical empathy?. Journal Of General Internal Medicine, 18(8), 670-674. doi: 10.1046/j.1525-1497.2003.21017.x
Derksen, F., Bensing, J., & Lagro-Janssen, A. (2013). Effectiveness of empathy in general practice: a systematic review. British Journal Of General Practice, 63(606), e76-e84. doi: 10.3399/bjgp13x660814
2 thoughts on “A psychological hug”
Good afternoon, Ruve.
I think you text showed a good display of your ethical dilemma. I liked that you have explained your clinical experience and how this dilemma has affected you. My suggestion would be to now discuss what you are going to do to change how you treat your patients differently now. Perhaps you could find some literature that discusses how to create the boundary between having too much versus too little empathy for your patients.
I do however think you need to substantiate your argument further. Do you agree with your supervisor that we should be firmer with patients even though they are in pain? Or are you doing this because it is what you have been told and that you do not necessarily agree?
I would suggest that you find more resources, and that are more recently published, to substantiate your argument. I would also suggest revising how to do your APA references. For example, for your in-text reference, there needs to be a comma in between the surname and year. And your reference list also needs some work as it is missing where the article was published etc.
I thought your language and grammar was good and that your writing piece flowed in logical manner.
I definitely agree that we need to have empathy for our patients and that it most certainly does play in big role in establishing a good rapport with our patients and therefore affects our effectiveness of our treatment.
Halinka.
Good afternoon Ruve.
Thank you for sharing your clinical experiences with us. I think I can partly relate to this as I’ve had a similar experience. This made me realize that somehow we tend to let our emotions overrule us which affects our patients at the end of the day – we should be more firm as it is also going to benefit them. I would suggest that you include a constructive argument within your text and find literature that substantiates your argument. Also, you can include in-text references to make it more credible.
Your piece has a logical thread and flows throughout. The language and grammar was good overall.
Your piece gave me some new insight on being empathic but also being a but firm to ensure efficacy of my treatment.