Some philosophers of science and social scientists disapprove of using empathy in human inquiry. Empathy would be neither sufficient nor necessary for understanding another person. In this article, the insufficiency of empathy will be recognized, but the necessity of empathy for interpersonal understanding in everyday life, situations of professional care, and certain forms of human inquiry, especially qualitative research, will be supported. However, empathic understanding should not be conceived as pure psychic identification, but rather as putting oneself imaginatively into the experiential world of another person with the aim to understand the other. Emotional resonance is not only an early phase of it, but also a basic facet. A comprehensive conceptualization of empathic understanding is developed, which makes empathy more worthwhile in professional contexts. Empathic understanding is conceived as a two-dimensional concept. The mental dimension refers to affective, cognitive, and interpretive facets or phases of empathic understanding and the social dimension refers to expressive, responsive, and interactive facets or phases of empathic understanding. These two dimensions are crosswise combined and the most optimal form of empathic understanding is called ''dialogical-hermeneutical empathic understanding.'' In addition, the importance of imagination and the development of it for optimal empathic understanding are elaborated.
Background: In healthcare practice, care providers are confronted with decisions they have to make, directly affecting patients and inevitably harmful. These decisions are tragic by nature. This study investigates the role of Moral Case Deliberation (MCD) in dealing with tragic situations. In MCD, caregivers reflect on real-life dilemmas, involving a choice between two ethical claims, both resulting in moral damage and harm. One element of the reflection process is making explicit the harm involved in the choice. How harmful are our decisions? We investigated how facilitators of MCD experience the importance of addressing harm in MCD and what participants learn from reflecting on harm. Methods: The study was qualitative, focusing on the views and experiences of the facilitators of MCD. Semi-structured interviews (N = 12) were conducted with facilitators of MCD. The research focuses on the subjective experiences of facilitators. Grounded Theory was used for analysis. Results: The results show two main categories. The first concerns the awareness of tragedy. Within this category, five themes were discerned: making explicit that there is no solution, visualizing consequences, uncovering pain, focusing on emotion, and exploring perspectives on harm. The second category concerns the support for healthcare professionals in dealing with the tragedy of the choices they face. In this category, five themes came forward: acknowledging, offering comfort, managing harm, consideration through dialogue and repairing harm. Conclusion: Our study shows that addressing harm in MCD in tragic situations provides an important moral learning opportunity for participants. By formulating and becoming aware of harm, MCD aids healthcare professionals in the task they are faced with, namely making difficult and painful choices. MCD helps healthcare professionals to repair moral damage, making clear at the same time that harm cannot be undone.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.