If anyone has any thoughts on this I would be glad to hear them.
If you would like to maintain correspondence, then get in touch by e-mail, I will be glad to hear all stories and opinions from either side of the fence which we are attempting to knock down.
Answer by MadforMAC
Being a teacher and a long-time volunteer, I don't think you can "teach" empathy. It is definately something within the person. If they don't have it...they don't have it. Sadly.
I feel any profession or volunteer work that requires empathy needs to choose it's workers carefully. There are too many out there that are in care positions for the wrong reasons and those usually are the folks that do the most damage.
Maybe by giving them a strong dose of their own medicine...bullying to the enth degree with a very large man with a very big voice in their face...would give them something to think about? I don't know. You've stumped me.
Answer by hallitubevolunteer1
Caring is an emotional response, and these flatten out over time to the same stimulus. During their first days, they did care, but if you were for weeks in a region in Africa were hunger and disease is widespread, over time your charitable responses would be quenched. But you would be left with the stronger conviction that help is needed there. Health workers are more aware than the general public that the mental diseases and patient care are a problem, but our entire CNS is built to eventually ignore stimuli which re-occurr. There might be biochemical techniques of prolonging the response, but those would be unethical and not accepted by the caregivers. One solution would be on using very young people as caregivers.
Unrelated: solve the commuting problem, google Hallitubes and tell your friends.
Answer by hartshorntracy
i am a carer and i dont and didn't need teaching,it came naturally
Answer by Ph_D
Empathy can be taught to most people, unless you are working with individuals with psychopathy (aka sociopaths). The most effective tool is perspective taking, and there are many ways to teach this. Your use of theatre can definitely help, but I would suggest doing more than theatre. The participants should receive several modes of learning: educational components, experiential (aka theatre), and shared dialog of their own experiences moderated by the group and expert (therapist) who can help them see their experience in a different light. During my career I have worked several different populations (mental retardation, dual diagnosis, medical populations, sex offenders), and found that setting is a major factor in teaching empathy. For example, it is nearly impossible to teach empathy to a group of male sex offenders. Too many sources of resistance and individuals sharing similar distortions of placing blame somewhere other than themselves. You need to understand your audience first, and recognize whether they will learn better in a combination of individual sessions with some group work, or if they will learn best strictly through group work. Then you need to provide a strong rationale for why they need to change and work on empathy. E.g., how empathy will improve their effectiveness? How will it improve their quality of life at work? Will it create a less stressful environment? And most importantly, how will improve the outcomes of the pt's if done properly? Empathy used properly will impact all of these areas.
One specific exercise I can suggest is have your support workers pair into groups of two. First have everyone complete a simple memory task, such as list learning from the RBANDS. Then provide a script of what a paranoid schizophrenic might "hear" during a delusional state (a cruel voice telling them to kill themselves, criticizing them etc...). Then you have each partner take turns for 5 minutes playing one of two roles. The first role is the mind. The mind individual should read the script while standing directly behind the second individual. They should read the script loudly and in a commanding and cruel voice. The second individual should then be asked to complete a similar memory task. After they both taken turns attempting to complete this task have the group come back together to discuss how different the experience was of completing the memory task with versus without the mind criticizing them. This exercise can help the support workers understand how difficult doing simple tasks can be for some one who is dealing with delusions. The key is for the script readers to really play the part of a vicious voice. While it may not be PC, for this experience to be real it should include a script with illicit, emotionally abusive language because this is the experience of individuals with severe schizophrenia.
Hope this helps.
Orignal From: How can we teach the carers to actually care?
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