The efficacy of empathy in diagnosis and treatment

An integrated, "holistic" approach to the sick patient is an ideal that remains elusive under the best of circumstances but especially if the importance of affective empathic interactions is not emphasized. Although models of psychosomatic and/or psychobiological approaches abound, and in spite of additional courses in medical school pertinent to psychological issues, the cognitive may prevail while the affective is left to languish. The problem may well be that the cognitive elements of humanism, which make for an educated practitioner, are easier to address and therefore attract the greater attention, while the affective learning, which makes for a humane and compassionate practitioner, is so much more difficult to encompass in a curriculum. The practicing physician, however, is likely to find that without greater nurturance of the capacity for empathy, psychosocial or psychosomatic conceptualizations are likely to have little impact on clinical care of patients.