Empathy And Transcendence Summary

The article, “Empathy and Transcendence”, by Carol M. Davis seeks to explore the transcendence qualities of empathy and makes a case for how that aspect of empathy is often ignored by individuals and professionals, while the author examines the work of other researchers on that subject. The author states that “In this article I will present a common view in holistic health, or caring for the whole person with physical, intellectual, emotional, spiritual and social needs and functions, and focuses on the most neglected aspect, the spiritual” (Davis,2003, p.265).

The holistic views of persons; when the author asked some students “What makes up a whole human being? (Davis, 2003, p.266), many agreed that it is more than our bodies alone, the students

The author went on to say that the social can be viewed as the fifth quadrant and composes of our interaction with society, relationships with others, which the researcher sees as the results of a balance in four quadrants. She goes on further to state that “Most of us are rather good at getting our needs met on 1-2 of the quadrants, at the expense of others” (Davis, 2003, p.266). This could certainly be true, society and even the media pushes certain areas of our life that we should focus on, such as the physical and intellectual, while we ignore our emotional and spiritual. The author emphasized that as professionals we need to have a balance in all four quadrants in order to gain therapeutic presence with our patients/ clients. The author goes on to explain “As facilitators of healing, of wholeness and balance in our patients, it helps for us as practitioners to feel whole, or to feel “centered”, this is a very great point that we can benefit from in this article in our professional

We need to strive for a balance in all quadrants of our being, in order to be centered individuals and professionals. If we are not able to achieve this, our therapeutic presence will be affected. The article seems to focus heavily on how to achieve the state of empathy and the role the transcendence quality plays within it, there wasn’t much on how to maintain that state with all client types or with the variety of cases we may receive. There are some areas in this article that I thought could use some further explanation, i.e. (p.268) “randomized controlled clinical trial search on the effects of prayer as an aid to healing and recovery can no longer be ignored”, I wish the writer gave us more information or her insight on prayer in healing and recovery. Overall I thought this article was a good one and it did contribute to my knowledge of empathy and how to get to that state where I am available to help the client with balancing their own quadrants, to have a balanced and centered life. I think this is a great step for a successful