Having trouble with the empathy vs. sympathy

ehra_lovendino · Aug 3, 2008

hi my dear,

one of my clinical instructor told me during my duty that you should not have a close bonding to your patient because when the time comes that your patient have too much attachment on you, your patient can be too spoiled and also one disadvantage is that you will let your symphaty on your patient dominates you.. and you can't give what your patient is needing. also, my c.i. told me that you should appear strong in front of your patient. hope my advice help...goodluck and godbless..:wink2:

DaFreak71 · Aug 3, 2008

Hello OP

Here is the way I think of this...

Sympathy is the feeling I have when I pity my patient, I feel sorry for him/her. When I feel sorry for my patient, I lose objectivity and will end up doing things for him/her to relieve MY feelings of pity whether or not they are actually good for the patient.

Empathy is my ability to imagine myself in my patients situation and to relate to their frustration, sadness, etc. This feeling will prompt me to go into problem solving mode. I will be using my intellect to solve a problem instead of reacting out of pure emotion.

Note with empathy you do not distance yourself from the patient, in fact you get quite close. Close enough to get a strong sense of what they are feeling/going through. If you don't do this, how will you be able to really know what they need?

If your patient has just returned from surgery and you feel so sorry for him/her that you don't encourage them to TCDB, you aren't spoiling them...you are being negligent. As long as you are performing your duties as a nurse, I don't quite understand how a person can "spoil" a patient.

Also...here's something my clinical instructor told me:

If you are crying for the PATIENT, that's empathy. If you are thinking of your patients problem and it reminds you of something you went through and you become sad and focus on YOUR pain, that is sympathy. If the patient is the SOLE focus, you're doing a good job! I'd personally be worried if you were so detached from your patients that you never had any feelings about them when you got home. However...if they consume you, you may want to talk to someone about that. Seek out a clinical instructor you feel a connection with and ask him/her if they have ever had to deal with that problem. Chances are--they have. :heartbeat

P.S. I still think about patients I had in nursing one! :wink2:

missjennmb · Aug 4, 2008

hi my dear,
one of my clinical instructor told me during my duty that you should not have a close bonding to your patient because when the time comes that your patient have too much attachment on you, your patient can be too spoiled and also one disadvantage is that you will let your symphaty on your patient dominates you.. and you can't give what your patient is needing. also, my c.i. told me that you should appear strong in front of your patient. hope my advice help...goodluck and godbless..:wink2:

this definition kind of leaves a bad taste in my mouth... I'm not quite sure how to put a finger on it. Perhaps its just a different set of nursing skills in your country ehra_lovendino?

I've actually been having a lot of trouble with this recently. I am only a secretary atm, and I don't have a whole lot of patient/family contact other than hearing about it during report (which happens around my desk) and when doing charges/discharge paperwork, but I have had a few really heartbreaking moments for various reasons. I find that its the the death of children that I have the most trouble with, and I think that its like lostdruid said... crying for the patient, or crying because that patient reminds you of someone or something you hold dear.

My therapists tell me that you get used to it. You don't lose your ability to FEEL but you gain more of an ability to work through it, and move past it. There will always be a few here and there that really get to you, but its not often, and its not wrong, as long as you can still get your job done and don't let it interfere with your homelife. (atleast this is what they tell me :) ) We have a sort of company paid for counseling service that is available to us free of charge any time we want it, and I think that if it were affecting me extensively I would utilize that and try to find a way to better process the experiences.