Hospitality to Strangers: Empathy and the Physician-Patient Relationship

by Dorothy M. Owens

Overview

In an era of transition and tension in American health care, Dorothy M. Owens offers a model of empathic communication that benefits both patients and physicians. Drawing from concepts in the domains of psychology and theology, she constructs a model of empathy that is ethical and reciprocal. An integrated model of empathy recognizes the physical, psychological, spiritual, and social nature of human beings. Empathy is a clinically useful, time-effective communication skill that can be taught in medical and pastoral education. Dr. Owens's unique approach to empathy is applicable to other professional and personal relationships as well.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780788506031
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	12/01/1999
Series:	AAR Academy Series , #100
Pages:	176
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.80(h) x 0.30(d)

Table of Contents

	Acknowledgements	viii
	Introduction	1
I.	Suffering and the Stranger	7
	Medicine, Psychology, Theology and Suffering	8
	Hospitality to Strangers	24
	Care	27
II.	Psychological Domain: Empathy as Paradox	32
	Definitions and Development	32
	Reciprocity and Complex Healing Process	39
	Paradox and Mystery	51
III.	Theological Domain: Empathy as Transcendent Phenomenon	62
	Buber and Relationship	63
	"Between" and the Interhuman	73
	Hospitality and the Infinite	78
IV.	Ethical Domain: Empathy as Healing Relationship	89
	Paternalism and Autonomy	90
	Ethic of Suffering	97
	Healing Relationship	104
V.	Medicine: An Integrative Model of Empathy	111
	Purpose of Medicine	112
	Empathy	128
	Medical Education	134
	Conclusion	150
Appendix	Course Syllabus	153
	Bibliography	155

Editorial Reviews

"A fresh, healing wind blows from this volume into the chaotic, hi-tech, depersonalizing world of current sickness care. It is a must-read for physicians, nurses, other health care professionals, and students of these therapeutic disciplines. But it is also insightfully useful for clergy, lay caregivers, and seminarians, as well as secular caregivers. Dr. Owens gives all of us wounded healers the gift of in-depth, innovative understandings of empathy and suffering, brokenness and caregiving, healing and wholeness, and-very important-the teaching and learning of integrative empathy that nurtures wholeness in both sufferers and healers."-Howard Clinebell, Ph.D., Author, Anchoring Your Well Being: Christian Wholeness in a Fractured World

"Dr. Owens has an amazingly intuitive grasp of this complicated problem, as if she has stood in the shoes of both patients and physicians. Her analysis goes to the roots of the problem, including the social, psychological, and theological issues. She provides a background and an understanding that the scholar, physician, and patient can all use. This book should be required reading for everyone intent on improving the interaction between physician and patient. I know of no other book like it." —John Bennett, M.D., M.A.C.P. National Institutes of Health, Bethesda

"Dr. Owens' book investigates the theological and religious underpinnings of the physician's role in American culture, evaluates it, and proposes a theologically and psychologically based response. In days of managed care and other ideologies that constrain what 'health care' means, Dr. Owens asks us to re-examine the foundations upon which care resides."-Volney P. Gay, Ph.D., Vanderbilt University

Dr. Owens' book translates the human chemistry of empathetic communication that interdigitates patient welfare and physician initiative. She treats the subject of feeling through psychology and theology in ways clinically useful and programmatically interesting. The willingness and ability to communicate is integral to empathy and a proper physician/patient relationship. The model is useful, the substance interesting and the activity generally helpful to an understanding leading to evaluation and a proper course o action."—John E. Chapman, M.D., Vanderbilt University

"A fresh, healing wind blows from this volume into the chaotic, hi-tech, depersonalizing world of current sickness care. It is a must-read for physicians, nurses, other health care professionals, and students of these therapeutic disciplines. But it is also insightfully useful for clergy, lay caregivers, and seminarians, as well as secular caregivers. Dr. Owens gives all of us wounded healers the gift of in-depth, innovative understandings of empathy and suffering, brokenness and caregiving, healing and wholeness, and-very important-the teaching and learning of integrative empathy that nurtures wholeness in both sufferers and healers."-Howard Clinebell, Ph.D., Author, Anchoring Your Well Being: Christian Wholeness in a Fractured World

"Dr. Owens has an amazingly intuitive grasp of this complicated problem, as if she has stood in the shoes of both patients and physicians. Her analysis goes to the roots of the problem, including the social, psychological, and theological issues. She provides a background and an understanding that the scholar, physician, and patient can all use. This book should be required reading for everyone intent on improving the interaction between physician and patient. I know of no other book like it." —John Bennett, M.D., M.A.C.P. National Institute of Health, Bethesda

"Dr. Owens' book investigates the theological and religious underpinnings of the physician's role in American culture, evaluates it, and proposes a theologically and psychologically based response. In days of managed care and other ideologies that constrain what 'health care' means, Dr. Owens asks us to re-examine the foundations upon which care resides."-Volney P. Gay, Ph.D., Vanderbilt University

Dr. Owens' book translates the human chemistry of empathetic communication that interdigitates patient welfare and physician initiative. She treats the subject of feeling through psychology and theology in ways clinically useful and programmatically interesting. The willingness and ability to communicate is integral to empathy and a proper physician/patient relationship. The model is useful, the substance interesting and the activity generally helpful to an understanding leading to evaluation and a proper course o action."—John E. Chapman, M.D., Vanderbilt University

From the Publisher