Empathy and Compassion
The Effect of Empathy and Compassion on Client Care Kyle McLaughlin
University of New England
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Throughout my life, I have always been close to my grandmother. She always has been supportive of my goals and my education, and would talk to me a lot about what my hopes and dreams were. She would inspire me based on the experiences that she had as a special education teacher and she always told me that, “If I loved what I did and found meaning in it that I would never have to work a day in my life”. It always brought me joy to make people happy, and the way I would make people happy was usually through helping them with small tasks, or helping them to understand concepts that I could grasp in school. I felt that studying with someone or helping them to understand a concept that was difficult for them contributed to their success as a student. When they would tell me how they did on one of their tests or endeavors that I helped them with, it would contribute to my happiness because I felt like I was one of the many reasons why they succeeded.I told her more about how whenever I would see that somebody was experiencing stress related to their schoolwork, it would make me feel stressed too, leading to a desire to help relieve their own stress. I told her that this feeling stemmed from my understanding of the feeling of stress while I was struggling with schoolwork. She told me that this feeling was called empathy, and that it was one of the most important traits to carry with me if I was to work in the healthcare field. Whenever I am with a group of my friends, I always feel connected to the emotions that they are feeling. If I am feeling one way and my friends are feeling another, my emotions will always start to gravitate towards the way they are feeling. I
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feel as if this could be a result of my empathic personality. Compassion and empathy are two concepts that go hand in hand when working in the healthcare field, especially as a nurse.
The three types of empathy are all integral to the healthcare delivery experience. Cognitive empathy is the ability to take somebody else’s perspective whilst removing oneself emotionally from the situation. It is an important skill to have when realizing the perspective of your patient, or somebody on the opposing side of an argument. It assists with understanding the pain level of the client, while internally comparing it with one’s own experiences. Emotional empathy refers to the metaphorical transfer of emotions from one person to another. For example, if one person is feeling happiness and that one person spends time with a group of people that are experiencing guilt, sadness or betrayal, the person with emotional empathy may start to begin experiencing these emotions as well. Emotional empathy can be helpful because it allows us to better understand one another’s emotions and feelings. However, it can also be detrimental as one may become overwhelmed through experiencing the emotions of others. Additionally, compassionate empathy is the form of empathy that deals with mentally putting oneself in the position of another human’s emotions and taking action to help that other person. Compassion is defined as the “sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others” (Oxford Languages) Empathy deals with the acquisition of ones perspective through critical thinking while compassion is the genuine concern for human suffering. Both empathy and compassion go hand in hand to facilitate action being taken to alleviate the suffering of others. Compassion is necessary for a positive and caring response when working with cognitive empathy, as one can understand the pain that a patient is feeling, but compassion must be present in order to compel one to take action to alleviate the pain that is understood.
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Empathy and compassion are integrated with the carative factors of “the cultivation of sensitivity to one’s self and to others”, “the promotion and acceptance of the expression of positive and negative feelings” and “the assistance with gratification of human needs”. (nurseslabs.com) Empathy is being sensitive to another person’s situation through allowing oneself to see their perspectives. Compassion allows one to be sensitive to another person’s situation through recognizing that their situation is difficult and feeling pity for that person. When a caregiver is empathetic, they are able to feel the patients emotions whether they are positive or negative, and they allow themselves to feel those feelings. Compassion and empathy work together to compel the caregiver to gratify another human’s needs. When a caregiver feels empathy towards another human, they put themselves in the other person’s shoes to understand what they are feeling, the caregiver then feels pity or genuine concern for the other person’s suffering. This understanding and concern drives the caregiver to perform an intervention to help the patient in the most effective way possible.
Both empathy and compassion can bring about a greater effectiveness in the delivery of care in terms of client outcomes. When a nurse practices empathetic and compassionate care, they are more engaged in the case of the client due to the nurses integration with the clients emotions. They become more active listeners, more careful during interventions and other procedures to avoid malpractice and provide more dignity to the patient, as the nurse would constantly be asking themselves throughout the actions of care: “How would I feel if I was in this clients situation?”. When a client is listened to, they feel more dignified and cared for. It makes them feel like a whole person as opposed to simply another number that the facility is attempting to cure. If a nurse can understand a client’s pain, they would work even harder to prevent pain from occuring during a procedure.
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An example of empathy and compassionate care that I provided to a client was in the instance of a client that continuously rang their call bell. The other nurses on the floor would complain about the call bell ringing very frequently. I went into the clients room to discover what they needed. The client kept asking questions each time the call bell rang. I went into the room for the third time, but this time I stayed and made small talk with the client. The client did not seem concerned about the questions they have been asking earlier while talking with me. We discussed Star Wars, the client’s situation at home,his girlfriend, poetry and art. When I first entered the room the client appeared to be in distress as evidenced by them talking at a fast pace. After our conversation, the client appeared more at ease. Empathy was utilized when I found that the patient was in distress due to their focus on their condition. I have been anxious because I have not had a distraction during a difficult situation or time so I understood what the client was going through. My compassion for the clients distress drove me to engage in therapeutic conversation with them. My role in this event was the caregiver. I feel as if the response could be improved in the future through improving my active listening skills. I feel as if there is always room for improvement in terms of listening.
In order to incorporate these caring behaviors into clinical practice, I will continue to ensure that I ask myself while performing any task for the client:”How would I feel if I was getting this procedure done to me, how would I feel if I was in the clients position?” I would also introspectively practice compassion through continuing to feel genuine concern for my clients well being.
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References
Gonzalo, A. (2019, September 12). Theory Of Human Caring. Nurses Labs.
