ABSTRACT

This chapter identifies empathic failure as the principal reason for the emergency healthcare workers. It is believed that through empathy, through “subjectifying” rather than objectifying the other (in this case the addicted patient) the problem of poor relations between emergency workers and disenfranchized patients presenting with addictions issues can be alleviated. There exists a wealth of literature pointing to the role empathy plays in effecting positive outcomes in the therapist-client relationship, and Miller and Rollnick (1991) emphasize the importance of empathy in work with addicted individuals. Having named empathic failure as the primary source of the problem, efforts to increase the empathic capacity of emergency healthcare workers would be a logical remedial step. A pragmatic empathy training program designed for emergency workers and suitable to the considerable budget and time constraints that influence hospital programming is outlined in this chapter. But first, empathy, the pivotal construct of this discussion, needs to be defined.