Читать книгу Becoming a Reflective Practitioner - Группа авторов - Страница 86

Every experience involves a web of different people; patients, relatives, and diverse professionals set against an organisational background. Each person involved will have a perspective on the particular situation. These perspectives are often contradictory in that people may see the situation differently. Hence it is necessary for the practitioner to inquire into these different perspectives beyond her or his own partial view. Inquiry into other perspectives is termed empathic inquiry. It is the path to connect with the other and opens a gate to tune into the other’s wavelength and talk about issues.⁵ Imagine the other’s perspective requires stepping back and taking an objective stance free from one’s own personal perspective. It is akin to putting yourself in the other person’s shoes to consider their view of the situation. Understanding the other’s perspectives gives a bigger picture of the situation and sets up the potential for resolving any ethical dilemma and conflict over what is the right way to respond.

Kant’s moral imperative asserts ‘do as you would be done for’. However, this runs the risk of imposing your own values into the situation. For example, viewing an elderly patient ‘as if that was my mother’. The problem with this principle is that the patient is not your mother and that imposing such a position may be misguided because of identification and emotional entanglement.