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Updated: Dec 23, 2025

Using a Comparative Species Approach to Investigate the Neurobiology of Paternal Responses
Published on: September 19, 2011
Paternalism, Evangelism, and Power
Kimberly Bloom-Feshbach1, Nathan Goldberg2, Joseph J Fins3,4
1Section of Hospital Medicine, Division of General Internal Medicine, Department of Medicine, New York-Presbyterian-Weill Cornell Medical Center, 525 East 68th Street, Box 331, New York, NY, 10065, USA. kib9047@med.cornell.edu.
Abstract:
In medicine and pastoral care, there are parallel struggles with paternalism and evangelism, each exertions of power in the setting of privilege. While striving to avoid abuses of power, well-intentioned professionals may unwittingly abjure providing guidance. This can result in threats to patient care: professional abdication and patient abandonment. In The Healer's Power, Howard Brody conceptualizes an approach to the use of power in therapeutic relationships. In this essay, we invoke Brody's framework to consider the place of evangelism and paternalism in the fields of chaplaincy and medicine in order to promote healing amidst power differentials.
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