The physiological nature of caring: Understanding nonverbal behavior

Abstract

The evaluation of clinician empathy has traditionally included clinician self-reports, patient assessments, and expert–teacher evaluations with validated instruments. Expert evaluations, in particular, depend heavily on the verbal communication of empathy. In this chapter, we will describe clinicians’ nonverbal cues which are thought to play an important role in the communication of empathy, including facial affective mirroring of the patient, body posture, and other physical markers of positive emotion, and time spent with the patient. Furthermore, we will examine how facial affective behavior and psychophysiological indices of the autonomic nervous system may offer promise into understanding clinicians’ empathetic responding to patients.