Navigating Empathy in Healthcare: A Call for More Compassion
Empathy, it’s a good thing, right?
Is there such as being too empathetic?
I would argue, yes. (stay with me here for a moment).
Empathy been talked about as a cornerstone of human connection and an essential skill for physiotherapists.
However, empathy can be a double-edged sword in healthcare and in other helping-oriented professionals.
Empathy is certainly needed to build connection and the therapeutic relationship with our patients. It also initiates intrinsic motivation to want to help others and other prosocial behaviours.
However too much empathy can be emotionally exhausting.
Too much empathy especially when exposed to repeated human suffering can lead to empathic distress. Exposure to human suffering is common in healthcare and other helping-oriented roles.
In a qualitative interview study with physiotherapists, the following themes emerged (McGrath et al, 2024):
Even though physiotherapists are “physical” therapists, encounters with patients undergoing psychological distress are common
These encounters are emotionally exhausting
Becoming emotionally attuned with patients also meant that the patients’ distress could also invoke empathic distress
Physiotherapists try to use an “emotional shield” sometimes to protect their emotional self
To understand this double-sided sword phenomenon, we need to first understand empathy, its different types, and its mechanisms.
Understanding Empathy: Three Types Compared
Empathy is often defined as the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. Empathy is often discussed as a single construct, but it can be divided into three distinct types: affective empathy, cognitive empathy, and compassionate empathy.
Each one plays a role in interpersonal interactions, but each impacts both patients, healthcare providers, and our personal relationships differently. Each distinct type also uses different neural pathways in our brain.
Affective Empathy is the ability to share and feel the emotions of other. For example, when you are watching a movie, a sad scene comes on, you feel for the main character and you start tearing up.
Cognitive Empathy is the ability to understand another’s perspective and emotions without feeling them yourself. For example, recognizing a friend is feeling upset about a situation even though you don’t feel upset yourself.
Compassionate Empathy (Compassion) is the ability to care about others and wanting to help without becoming overwhelmed by their emotions.
The Challenges with Affective Empathy
As Paul Bloom argues in his book, Against Empathy, not all empathy is created equal. While empathy enables us to resonate with others’ emotions, it can sometimes lead to emotional exhaustion and impaired decision-making.
Too much affective empathy in our professional lives is especially problematic when because:
