Empathy In Nursing Essay

Introduction

There are various qualities that must come together to make up a nurse. The possession of those qualities combined followed with their application to nursing, is what makes the profession stand out from the others. As a group, we decided to focus on knowledge, dignity, empathy and communication. We have successfully managed to depict and translate these four distinct qualities with a symbolic reference using a coat of arms. In the art piece, symbols such as a tree, a human face, a ripple, and two hands were used to represent our qualities respectively. Furthermore, an additional swirl of arrows and a bow tie were incorporated into the picture to help signify unity and connection amongst the qualities.

Communication

Communication

Although both words are feelings concerning other people and similarly used, they differ in their emotional meaning. Empathy is defined as the ability to experience the feelings of another person. It involves seeing someone else’s situation from their perspective and sharing their emotions. It is the projection of one’s personality into another person to try and fully understand that person. Empathy goes beyond sympathy, which is feeling compassion, sorrow or pity for the hardship that another person encounters. A nurse requires empathy and not sympathy in order to maintain a healthy therapeutic relationship with the client. Being sympathetic with a client will not benefit them and cause poor adaptation to their situation. Furthermore, it can impede their progression toward a successful recovery. With that said, using sympathetic approaches is ineffective in that is only aims them client to feel better but not get better. On the other hand, empathy is more productive and powerful in that it opens a door that encourages clients to share the burden of their fears and anxieties of an uncertain future (Sealy, 2011). This a more beneficial approach as it allows the nurse to help the client cope with their situation and improve their wellbeing. Two hands closing over the symbols of communication, knowledge and dignity were used to represent the quality of empathy. This symbol was used because the hands are one of major body parts used to touch and feel things. The hands can perceive and recognize the form, size and weight of an object even in the absence of visual and auditory cues. This tactile ability is known as stereognosis. It can relate how nurses use empathy by using effective communication, knowledge, while maintaining the dignity of the client to help understand and “feel” with