Empathy, caring and compassion: Toward a Freudian critique of nursing work
The aim of this paper is to summarize key psychoanalytic concepts first developed by Sigmund Freud and apply them to a critical exploration of three terms that are central to nursing's self-image—empathy, caring, and compassion. Looking to Menzies-Lyth's work, I suggest that the nurse'...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
2023
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| In: |
Nursing philosophy
Year: 2023, Volume: 24, Issue: 1 |
| Further subjects: | B
Nursing
B Sigmund Freud B Psychoanalysis B Hermeneutics B Care |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (kostenfrei) Volltext (kostenfrei) |
| Summary: | The aim of this paper is to summarize key psychoanalytic concepts first developed by Sigmund Freud and apply them to a critical exploration of three terms that are central to nursing's self-image—empathy, caring, and compassion. Looking to Menzies-Lyth's work, I suggest that the nurse's strong identification as a carer can be understood as a fantasy of being the one who is cared for; critiques by Freud and others of empathy point to the possibility of it being, in reality, a form of projective identification; reading Lacan and Žižek, I propose that repeated research into caring and repeated complaint about barriers to caring can be understood as manifestations of the death drive first posited by Freud. I conclude that psychoanalytic insights suggest that caring roles can raise profoundly ambivalent issues for those who care but they can also point the way to freedom from painful and self-destructive symptoms inherent in such work. |
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| ISSN: | 1466-769X |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Nursing philosophy
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1111/nup.12399 |