The essay will briefly discuss 3 core conditions of effective helping skills, empathy, genuineness and acceptance (unconditional positive regard). It will focus on empathy and critically discuss the condition and will look at how empathy affects the nurse

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 The essay will briefly discuss 3 core conditions of effective helping skills, empathy, genuineness and acceptance (unconditional positive regard). It will focus on empathy and critically discuss the condition and will look at how empathy affects the nurse-patient relationship as this is viewed as central to the delivery of care (Taylor 1998; Bonnie et al 2003). It will also discuss why good communication skills are imperative to build a therapeutic relationship.

The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) advocates the significance of the nurse patient relationship in the code of professional conduct, and indicates that nurses are responsible that they develop and maintain appropriate relationships; it also advises that nurses must listen to the people in their care and respond to their concerns (NMC 2008)

Research over the years demonstrated that there are many approaches to having effective relationships that can bring meaningful change (McQueen 2000; Hill and Kellems 2002). One is the clients own motivation, the second is a presence of a person who can offer a relationship that includes acceptance, empathy and genuineness (Rogers as cited in McLeod 2003). McLeod (2003) described these three characteristics of Rogers’ core conditions as necessary to facilitate change and used in most helping disciplines. Norcross (2002) agrees that the use of empathy, unconditional positive regards and congruence is important and if used correctly can achieve positive outcomes.

Genuiness can be defined as “The basic ability to be aware of inner experiences and to allow the quality of that inner experience to be apparent in relationships” (Rana and Upton 2009, p 64).  It is also about being real and honest with people (Burnard 1994), for genuiness to be an effective helping skill the nurse must be able to communicate honestly with the patient (Grafanaki and McLeod 2002).  McCabe (2006) suggests that the offer of help should not be phony and that nurses should not hide behind the role of a counselor.  Schnellbacher and Leijssen (2009) define genuineness as being aware of one’s own experience otherwise known as self awareness and their findings also imply that genuiness in communication is imperative for healing. Being genuine also helps develop trust in the relationship (McLeod 2003), if a patient does not trust the nurse a therapeutic relationship will not form (McCabe 2006).  

Unconditional positive regard is a term designed by humanist Carl Rogers, it is seen as acceptance of a person regardless of what a person says or does, and it is one of the vital components of a counselling relationship (McLeod 2003). Corey (2001) suggests that acceptance can also be defined as being the acknowledgement of patient’s rights to have their own beliefs and feelings. It is imperative that no matter what a patient thinks or says about their situation, the nurse should accept this and not be judgmental (Burnard 1994). However Williams and Davies (2004) suggest that approving a client’s behaviour is not the same as accepting it.

“The NHS was built on care, compassion and empathy, these are nursing values” (Davis 2009, p1).  Empathy is the most crucial to the nurse-patient relationship (Burnard 1994; Corey 2001: Brunero et al 2009).  Reynolds et al (2001) identified that empathy is also crucial in all forms of helping relationships and using empathy involves the ability to communicate an understanding of the other person’s world.

William and Davies (2004) suggest that empathy involves thinking about or perceiving a situation from a client’s perspective. Wilkin and Silvester (2010) describes empathy as the ability to understand what the client is feeling, where as Barret- Lennar (1993) suggests that empathy allows the client to benefit from experiencing being heard and understood. He also proposed that it is a main feature of the person centered approach.

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Empathy is the ability to perceive accurately the feelings of another person and to communicate this to them, this should allow the nurse to view the patients illness and be non judgmental in the process (McCabe 2006).  Millenson (1995) argues that accurate empathy should always be empowering as it represents an understanding and acceptance of the patient’s feelings.  

Empathy is a type of perception, which includes carefully listening, observing gestures, body language and trying to understand the patient’s situation (Switankowowsky 2004). Empathy can be communicated both verbally and non verbally, non verbal behaviors include facing the patient, ...

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