Abstract
Abstract This article investigates the possible functions of empathic interpersonal engagement in the context of medicine and health care. While empathy can be understood in different ways on a theoretical level – as an embodied process of resonance and synchronization, as an affective process of emotional sharing, as a cognitive process of understanding the other, or as a narrative process of externalizing and communicating personal experiences – it is often called for on a normative level as a desideratum in the competence of medical professionals. We address this issue by introducing different models of the relationality between doctors and patients, in order to clarify which dimensions of empathy are relevant in which model and raise the question whether empathy is more than a nice-to-have virtue on the side of the professionals.
Highlights
Introduction[1] In July 2019, the Süddeutsche Zeitung published an article entitled “Aspiring physicians must show empathy”,2 invoking a commonplace criticism of modern medicine and health care: doctors should be more empathetic and show more compassion for the existential distress and crises of their patients
What is endangered by this is the interpersonal dimension of meaning or the “we-factor”. This contains a genuine potential for resilience, insofar as this factor can be determined as mutual empathy between subjects with an awareness of co-experiencing something
The assumption that the sense of commonality is anthropologically grounded, can be corroborated, for instance, by studies on declarative pointing[7] or on spontaneous helping behavior in infancy.[8]. This leads some theorists to postulate a direct connection between empathy and prosociality, discussed under the “empathy-altruism hypothesis”
Summary
In July 2019, the Süddeutsche Zeitung published an article entitled “Aspiring physicians must show empathy”,2 invoking a commonplace criticism of modern medicine and health care: doctors should be more empathetic and show more compassion for the existential distress and crises of their patients. A proper description of empathic processes requires a more comprehensive phenomenological analysis in which the different dimensions of empathy (on the bodily, affective, and cognitive level)[3] are related to each other. Those working in health care are confronted with emotionally challenging situations with patients and their relatives on a daily basis. The increasingly confusing organizational and political conditions of the health care system, such as the increasing demand for documentation, shortened periods of hospitalization, extreme time pressure and the requirement that more and more must be achieved with decreasing resources, makes the work stressful
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