Empathy, Compassion, and the Goals of Medicine

Abstract

This chapter discusses health care providers' exercise of empathy and compassion in their practice and how this should be taught in medical education. The way empathy and compassion are currently thought about and taught in medical education is the wrong answer to the right question. This chapter begins by outlining the reasons why this is so and then suggests an alternative way that is congruent with whole person care. The question of how to educate health care providers (HCPs) so that they are empathic and compassionate in the care of the sick is a good one and is synonymous with this book's focus on care of the whole person that includes the personal suffering that accompanies illness. If we agree that medicine's role is to reduce suffering, then educating health care professionals to understand the cognitive and emotional experiences of those they serve (i.e., being empathic) is, at first glance, the right goal. However, there are two problems with setting empathy as a goal in medical education; one problem is the "dark side" of empathy that is rarely addressed, and the other problem is the question what is left when empathy cannot be elicited or fails completely. Having outlined the limitations of empathy as goal for health care professionals, we focus on how mindful self-compassion is an essential and learnable starting point in the compassionate whole person care of others. Words elicit thoughts, perceptions, and emotions, and in your reading experience certain words, such as "compassion" and "empathy" and "healing," will be specific to your own definition and prior experiences. To put it another way, words are pointers that direct thoughts to experience; words are not the "thing" itself. In order to allow you the greatest possible opportunity for a meaningful reading of this chapter, I define what I mean by certain often positively and negatively charged words. One definition of authentic learning is that it is "paid for out of the pocket of what you thought you already knew." The word health care provider (HCP) is used as inclusive of both professionals and nonprofessionals who care for an ill person. The word patient is for anyone who asks for or needs assistance for physical and mental problems and thus is inclusive of the term "client" often used by psychotherapists. The terms "Other" and "the Other" are used to describe anyone other than one's self. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved). (chapter)