Virtues, Vices, and the Soul
Humility as a Psychotherapeutic Virtue: Religious Dynamics, Empirical Findings, and Clinical Implications
Steven J. Sandage, PhD, Boston University
David Paine, MA, Boston University
David Rupert, PsyD, Boston University
Nancy G. Devor, PhD, Boston University
Miriam Bronstein, LICSW, Boston University
Christine EunJoo Park, MDiv, ThM, Boston University
This proposal is based on a paper accepted for publication by Journal of Spirituality in Mental Health. The article will not be in print until late 2015.
Practitioners in medicine and the helping professions are often called to regulate their emotions and egoistic perspectives to best serve clients and others whom they work with, while simultaneously retaining the healthy confidence necessary for effective clinical practice. Willingness to acknowledge the limits of one’s competence, to refer when necessary, to tailor interventions to client needs, to critically question one’s clinical approach, to competently engage cultural and other diversity dynamics, to collaborate with other professionals across disciplines, and to seek continuing education may be understood as expressions of clinician humility.
Humility is long-been accepted as a spiritual virtue in all the major spiritual and religious traditions. The centrality of humility is observed in Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Taosim, Hinduism, and Confucianism (Paine, Sandage, Rupert, Devor, & Bronstein, in press; Peterson & Seligman, 2004). Psychology, however, has paid little attention to humility until recent years (Rowatt et al., 2006). Humility is best understood as a multidimensional construct comprised of (1) a willingness to perceive the self-accurately, (2) other-orientedness and avoidance of self-enhancement, (3) openness and (4) the ability to acknowledge one’s limitations (Bollinger & Hill, 2012). Empirical research on humility is growing (see 2014 special issue from Journal of Psychology and Theology, Volume 42, Issue 1).
Our research team has conducted several studies exploring humility in relation to spiritual and psychological constructs, including depressive symptoms (Jankowski, Sandage, & Hill, 2013), idealization (Sandage, Jankowski, Bissonette, & Paine, under review), forgiveness (Jankowski et al. 2013), differentiation of self (Jankowski & Sandage, 2014), intercultural competence (Paine, Sandage, & Jankowski, under review), commitment to social justice (Jankowski et al., 2013), attachment to God (Jankowski and Sandage, 2014), and spiritual pathology (Sandage, Paine, & Hill, under review). The results suggest humility is compatible with psychological well-being, mature expressions of relational selfhood, and adaptive styles of relating to the sacred.
Humility has not been studied extensively in the context of psychotherapy, specifically clinician humility. In this paper session, we draw on spiritual, psychological, and empirical insights related to humility and explore its role in effective clinical practice. First, we demonstrate how these insights have shaped our understanding of clinician humility. Then, we explore the ways in which humility supports best practice in psychotherapy, promoting multicultural competence, alliance repair, collaborative care, collection of client feedback, and professional consultation. We will argue that clinician humility contributes to progress in these areas by means of increased self-awareness, acceptance of responsibility, willingness to acknowledge shortcomings, openness to alternative perspectives on care, and receptivity to learning from others. Next, we address conceptual issues regarding (1) the appropriateness of adopting the language of “humility” in clinical contexts, (2) the distinction between virtues and clinical competencies, and (3) the advantages of integrating virtue-based value systems and clinical practice. Finally, we explore the implications of these insights for training and provide suggestions for future research and policy.
Sufi Metaphysics and the Virtue of Humility/Modesty in Medical Practice
Shahram Ahmadi Nasab Emran, MD, MA, PhD(c), Saint Louis University
Humility/modesty is a cardinal virtue for medical practice both in religious and secular accounts. In this paper, I shall indicate the relevance of Sufi metaphysics, specifically metaphysics of the great Sufi master Ibn Arabi, for the inculcation/development of a truly humble physician. For this purpose, I first review secular accounts of humility/modesty and indicate their shortcoming. Then, I shall explain the potential contribution a Sufi doctrine can make to solve the problem of the epistemic status of humble/modest person. According to a common secular understanding, humility/modesty means basically having an objective/realistic account of one’s strengths, worth and achievements (Marcum, 2009). A humble person in this account seems to simply lack certain vices such as vanity, pride and haughtiness, and because of this be one step closer to the heart of what humility seems to entail. However, as Driver (2001) rightly emphasizes, modesty would necessitate an underestimation of one’s own self-worth from the part of the modest/humble person. It means that, to be humble/modest it is not sufficient that you lack certain vices and be objective and realistic about your self-worth. It also requires, in contrast to self-deprecation, seeing things in the world, and correspondingly acting, in a certain way that reflects appreciating your self-worth, knowledge, power less than what it really is. Modesty/humility in the secular account requires an epistemic defect and an underestimation of one’s real level/status of achievement/knowledge/power.
That sounds contrary to the classic Aristotelian idea of virtue which requires knowledge. One possible solution to the problem is to deny the requirement for knowledge and say that there is a category of virtues of ignorance that include modesty (Driver, 2001). However, I propose an understanding of modesty/humility that is based on the Sufi metaphysical notions of unity and multiplicity in Ibn Arabi. In this view one can be truly humble/modest without being ignorant of his/her self-worth. According to the Sufi doctrine, all diverse appearances and “conditional beings” are reflections or “shadows” of the One real being (Nettler, 2003). There is a sophisticated interpretation of the apparently contrasting notions of unity and multiplicity that allows for looking at the relation between the One and the multiple from two horizons. Under such a metaphysical view there are two strong reasons to be humble/modest, without necessitating being ignorant to one’s real self-worth. First, seen from the horizon of multiplicity, we are always in the presence of an omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient Being. Compared to Him, our knowledge, achievement, power, etc., sounds like nothing. In addition, from the perspective of unity, what we consider as our own achievements, power, and knowledge are really just reflections/shadows emanating from the real One being. Hence, according to the Sufi metaphysics, the achievements, power, knowledge are really not ours, but His. What the humble/modest person has is just an expression/manifestation/part of the One’s very being. Hence, under this account the humble person acts humbly/modestly exactly because of his/her deep understanding and knowledge of his/her self-worth.
The Vice of Acedia: A Spiritual and Mental Health Issue
Christopher Jones, PhD(s), Boston College
Considering the vice of acedia shows how to integrate spirituality and mental health without medicalizing spiritual problems or spiritualizing mental disorders. Acedia—from the Greek a- + kedos, “lack of care”—is a vice against love of God that rejects moral agency, disorders love, and distorts thinking. As such, acedia is vice with various psychological effects (such as despair, anxiety, hyper productivity, etc.). This vice was widely discussed as a spiritual and psychological problem until the modern period, when three factors led to its neglect: (1) the equation of acedia with laziness in post-Reformation theological literature, (2) the medicalization of acedia as depression in the emerging psychological literature, and (3) the contention that spiritual concepts were out of place in psychological reflection. As spirituality and medicine became bifurcated, psychologists began to claim that the Christian tradition discovered depression, but spiritualized it as the vice of acedia.
This paper argues for an integrative approach that unites insights from theological ethics and psychology to clarify the nature of acedia. This approach resists the bifurcation of spirituality and medicine, rejects the reductive account of acedia as slothful laziness or depression, and demonstrates potential areas of overlap between vices and mental disorders.
Beginning with a brief statement of the problem of acedia, this paper indicates how the spiritual and mental health elements of acedia became separated. Then the paper highlights the strengths and weaknesses in the mental health discourse on vice (which is largely focused on more extreme criminal behaviors), and argues that this material can be supplemented with a theological account of vices as habits that result from choices to act which disorder the will, affections, and reasoning. This integrative account reveals how spiritual vices like acedia can be factors in mental health since they disorder crucial capacities of the mind like agency, love, and reasoning. Nevertheless, vices like acedia are distinct from sloth and mental disorders like depression. Acedia is not just laziness; it is much more complicated since it can make one indolent or hyperactive and restless. So much of the theological literature on acedia is too simple. Moreover, both vices and disorders involve intentions, choices, habits, and actions; but vices may or may not impact neural functioning or cause neural malfunction as mental disorders do. Spiritual vices and mental disorders, then, are distinct even though they may be connected in certain ways in certain cases. Consequently, acedia can be one of several factors—including biological and psychological ones—involved in the development course of mental disorders, but need not, and will not always be so involved. Recognizing this avoids spiritualizing mental disorders (by making mental disorder into a purely spiritual problem with a purely spiritual remedy), and medicalizing spiritual vices (by affirming that spiritual problems are at root medical ones requiring a medical remedy). Thus, to discuss acedia adequately, one needs to integrate insights from spirituality and mental health.
The Art of Care for Body and Soul: Theology, Wisdom, and Medical Care
Ashley Moyse, PhD, Vancouver School of Theology
E. L. Mascall (1941)has argued, “Christianity has consistently claimed to be concerned with body and soul at once. And, at a time when most people seem to have the idea that religion is a purely spiritual matter, it is essential to insist on the concern that it has with the body.” A similar statement might be said of medicine. That is, at a time when most people seem to think medicine is purely a physical matter, it is essential to insist on the concern that it has with the soul. Accordingly to suggest that the physical care of the body at the hands of physicians is not also spiritual care is to inculcate a perspective that is illusory and leads to 'unwanted outcomes'. Likewise, to suggest spiritual care attends to something other than physical illness is also misleading, perpetuating the division of care—spiritual and material. But what is needed to reconcile the binary of spiritual and physical care? As a theologian I might ask, What are the implications of theology for the tendency “to keep a wall of separation between medicine and religion” (Heschel, 1946).
Perhaps the theological study of wisdom (Sophia) could provide an answer. Wisdom might help bioethics, for example, to learn how to engage the strangeness of our world and guide medicine away from the fruitless separation of physical and spiritual care. It may be that we could be trained to understand the medical professional as one whose work is a redemptive responsibility to heal a broken world. Such understanding might come when grounded upon the ethics of a formed community encountered and transformed by Wisdom. Accordingly, in order to become an authentic means of hope, to help resolve problems, and to assist the response to provide care, and to goad such care toward human flourishing, even unto death, medicine must not be the handmaid of prosperity and technological promise guided by a division of body and spirit. Theology, therefore, through its encounter with and grasping for Wisdom, might clear the space for communities to retell the stories of body and soul, in unity. It might clear the space for communities to retell the stories of the very meaning of life, death, healing, and suffering, all the while inviting others to participate in the care of whole human persons. Only then might medicine experience a liturgy for understanding the deeper meaning of things. Only then might it learn of the art of living (care) for body and soul.
Parallel Dialogue: Patristic Diagnostics, Postmodern Insight on the Care of the Soul. Implication for Contemporary Doctor-Patient Encounters
Mariana Cuceu, MD, MPH, PhD(c), University of Chicago
Ricardo Moreno, MA(c), Catholic Theological Union
“What I really wanted was a doctor who understood that a conversation was as important as a prescription; a doctor to whom healing mattered as much as state-of-the-art surgery did.” M. O'Rourke - patient
Systemic changes in the last couple of decades in our medical system have intensified the disconnect between patients and doctors. In-spite of the mantra: “patient-centered care” patient sufferance receives the least attention. Patients receive substandard care and are given poor diagnoses due to physician’s time constraints, extenuating circumstances, and other personal challenges. This very real, at times antagonistic relationship between doctor and patient actively forces doctors to remain indifferent to the patient’s needs and this affects the entire medical and healing process. The result is an emotional absence of the physician from the primary reality at hand – the diseased patient who suffers – which has profound ethical consequences. This absence matters, because how patients feel about their medical interactions does influence the efficacy of the care they receive, and doctors’ emotions in turn influence the quality of the care they provide.
It’s alarming how fast doctors’ empathy wanes; we must ask why and to what cost. The medical education system largely ignores the emotional side of health care and future doctors end up distancing themselves from what they are seeing in their medical practices. Yet the dimension of empathy remains crucial to the doctors’ humanity as well as patients’ dignity and can be key to medical efficacy. For example, studies indicate that the rate of diabetes complications in patients of doctors who score high on an empathy scale, is 40 percent lower than in patients with low-empathy doctors. These results are comparable to the benefits seen with the most intensive medical therapy for diabetes, reminding us that despite technology and pharmaceutical advances, the patient-doctor relationship is still at the heart of medicine.
This paper will present the contemporary observations of Dr. Jodi Halpern on humanizing medical practice with a parallel analysis found in the work of philosopher John C. Larchet on Christian East patristic diagnostics and, by this opening, a lucid and powerful response from the Jewish philosopher and religious thinker Emmanuel Levinas. Halpern presents the stage of today’s emotional detachment found in doctor-patient relationships clearly outlining that although technologically proficient our medical system seems to be emotionally deficient. For Halpern, the understated assumption that medical judgments should depend only on objective judgments distorts the true nature of the caretaker relationship. She asserts that a strategic emotional reasoning amidst this relationship will nourish the development of clinical empathy. This picture captured by Halpern resonates within Larchet’s reflection and understanding on the nature of patristic diagnosis on spiritual maladies and will offer deeper spiritual and interpersonal insight into these observations. Emmaunel Levinas’ thinking on the ethical vigilance of being “awake” and responsible for the care of the other draws together this work and will offer a vision for the patient caretaker relationship. Whether we accept it or not, we all share the emotional, psychological, and the spiritual reality of others and, in particular, the care taker and the patient share each other worlds in very unique and powerful ways. The implications of this sharing are profound and require deep discernment, ethical formation and spiritual atonement.
Steven J. Sandage, PhD, Boston University
David Paine, MA, Boston University
David Rupert, PsyD, Boston University
Nancy G. Devor, PhD, Boston University
Miriam Bronstein, LICSW, Boston University
Christine EunJoo Park, MDiv, ThM, Boston University
This proposal is based on a paper accepted for publication by Journal of Spirituality in Mental Health. The article will not be in print until late 2015.
Practitioners in medicine and the helping professions are often called to regulate their emotions and egoistic perspectives to best serve clients and others whom they work with, while simultaneously retaining the healthy confidence necessary for effective clinical practice. Willingness to acknowledge the limits of one’s competence, to refer when necessary, to tailor interventions to client needs, to critically question one’s clinical approach, to competently engage cultural and other diversity dynamics, to collaborate with other professionals across disciplines, and to seek continuing education may be understood as expressions of clinician humility.
Humility is long-been accepted as a spiritual virtue in all the major spiritual and religious traditions. The centrality of humility is observed in Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Taosim, Hinduism, and Confucianism (Paine, Sandage, Rupert, Devor, & Bronstein, in press; Peterson & Seligman, 2004). Psychology, however, has paid little attention to humility until recent years (Rowatt et al., 2006). Humility is best understood as a multidimensional construct comprised of (1) a willingness to perceive the self-accurately, (2) other-orientedness and avoidance of self-enhancement, (3) openness and (4) the ability to acknowledge one’s limitations (Bollinger & Hill, 2012). Empirical research on humility is growing (see 2014 special issue from Journal of Psychology and Theology, Volume 42, Issue 1).
Our research team has conducted several studies exploring humility in relation to spiritual and psychological constructs, including depressive symptoms (Jankowski, Sandage, & Hill, 2013), idealization (Sandage, Jankowski, Bissonette, & Paine, under review), forgiveness (Jankowski et al. 2013), differentiation of self (Jankowski & Sandage, 2014), intercultural competence (Paine, Sandage, & Jankowski, under review), commitment to social justice (Jankowski et al., 2013), attachment to God (Jankowski and Sandage, 2014), and spiritual pathology (Sandage, Paine, & Hill, under review). The results suggest humility is compatible with psychological well-being, mature expressions of relational selfhood, and adaptive styles of relating to the sacred.
Humility has not been studied extensively in the context of psychotherapy, specifically clinician humility. In this paper session, we draw on spiritual, psychological, and empirical insights related to humility and explore its role in effective clinical practice. First, we demonstrate how these insights have shaped our understanding of clinician humility. Then, we explore the ways in which humility supports best practice in psychotherapy, promoting multicultural competence, alliance repair, collaborative care, collection of client feedback, and professional consultation. We will argue that clinician humility contributes to progress in these areas by means of increased self-awareness, acceptance of responsibility, willingness to acknowledge shortcomings, openness to alternative perspectives on care, and receptivity to learning from others. Next, we address conceptual issues regarding (1) the appropriateness of adopting the language of “humility” in clinical contexts, (2) the distinction between virtues and clinical competencies, and (3) the advantages of integrating virtue-based value systems and clinical practice. Finally, we explore the implications of these insights for training and provide suggestions for future research and policy.
Sufi Metaphysics and the Virtue of Humility/Modesty in Medical Practice
Shahram Ahmadi Nasab Emran, MD, MA, PhD(c), Saint Louis University
Humility/modesty is a cardinal virtue for medical practice both in religious and secular accounts. In this paper, I shall indicate the relevance of Sufi metaphysics, specifically metaphysics of the great Sufi master Ibn Arabi, for the inculcation/development of a truly humble physician. For this purpose, I first review secular accounts of humility/modesty and indicate their shortcoming. Then, I shall explain the potential contribution a Sufi doctrine can make to solve the problem of the epistemic status of humble/modest person. According to a common secular understanding, humility/modesty means basically having an objective/realistic account of one’s strengths, worth and achievements (Marcum, 2009). A humble person in this account seems to simply lack certain vices such as vanity, pride and haughtiness, and because of this be one step closer to the heart of what humility seems to entail. However, as Driver (2001) rightly emphasizes, modesty would necessitate an underestimation of one’s own self-worth from the part of the modest/humble person. It means that, to be humble/modest it is not sufficient that you lack certain vices and be objective and realistic about your self-worth. It also requires, in contrast to self-deprecation, seeing things in the world, and correspondingly acting, in a certain way that reflects appreciating your self-worth, knowledge, power less than what it really is. Modesty/humility in the secular account requires an epistemic defect and an underestimation of one’s real level/status of achievement/knowledge/power.
That sounds contrary to the classic Aristotelian idea of virtue which requires knowledge. One possible solution to the problem is to deny the requirement for knowledge and say that there is a category of virtues of ignorance that include modesty (Driver, 2001). However, I propose an understanding of modesty/humility that is based on the Sufi metaphysical notions of unity and multiplicity in Ibn Arabi. In this view one can be truly humble/modest without being ignorant of his/her self-worth. According to the Sufi doctrine, all diverse appearances and “conditional beings” are reflections or “shadows” of the One real being (Nettler, 2003). There is a sophisticated interpretation of the apparently contrasting notions of unity and multiplicity that allows for looking at the relation between the One and the multiple from two horizons. Under such a metaphysical view there are two strong reasons to be humble/modest, without necessitating being ignorant to one’s real self-worth. First, seen from the horizon of multiplicity, we are always in the presence of an omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient Being. Compared to Him, our knowledge, achievement, power, etc., sounds like nothing. In addition, from the perspective of unity, what we consider as our own achievements, power, and knowledge are really just reflections/shadows emanating from the real One being. Hence, according to the Sufi metaphysics, the achievements, power, knowledge are really not ours, but His. What the humble/modest person has is just an expression/manifestation/part of the One’s very being. Hence, under this account the humble person acts humbly/modestly exactly because of his/her deep understanding and knowledge of his/her self-worth.
The Vice of Acedia: A Spiritual and Mental Health Issue
Christopher Jones, PhD(s), Boston College
Considering the vice of acedia shows how to integrate spirituality and mental health without medicalizing spiritual problems or spiritualizing mental disorders. Acedia—from the Greek a- + kedos, “lack of care”—is a vice against love of God that rejects moral agency, disorders love, and distorts thinking. As such, acedia is vice with various psychological effects (such as despair, anxiety, hyper productivity, etc.). This vice was widely discussed as a spiritual and psychological problem until the modern period, when three factors led to its neglect: (1) the equation of acedia with laziness in post-Reformation theological literature, (2) the medicalization of acedia as depression in the emerging psychological literature, and (3) the contention that spiritual concepts were out of place in psychological reflection. As spirituality and medicine became bifurcated, psychologists began to claim that the Christian tradition discovered depression, but spiritualized it as the vice of acedia.
This paper argues for an integrative approach that unites insights from theological ethics and psychology to clarify the nature of acedia. This approach resists the bifurcation of spirituality and medicine, rejects the reductive account of acedia as slothful laziness or depression, and demonstrates potential areas of overlap between vices and mental disorders.
Beginning with a brief statement of the problem of acedia, this paper indicates how the spiritual and mental health elements of acedia became separated. Then the paper highlights the strengths and weaknesses in the mental health discourse on vice (which is largely focused on more extreme criminal behaviors), and argues that this material can be supplemented with a theological account of vices as habits that result from choices to act which disorder the will, affections, and reasoning. This integrative account reveals how spiritual vices like acedia can be factors in mental health since they disorder crucial capacities of the mind like agency, love, and reasoning. Nevertheless, vices like acedia are distinct from sloth and mental disorders like depression. Acedia is not just laziness; it is much more complicated since it can make one indolent or hyperactive and restless. So much of the theological literature on acedia is too simple. Moreover, both vices and disorders involve intentions, choices, habits, and actions; but vices may or may not impact neural functioning or cause neural malfunction as mental disorders do. Spiritual vices and mental disorders, then, are distinct even though they may be connected in certain ways in certain cases. Consequently, acedia can be one of several factors—including biological and psychological ones—involved in the development course of mental disorders, but need not, and will not always be so involved. Recognizing this avoids spiritualizing mental disorders (by making mental disorder into a purely spiritual problem with a purely spiritual remedy), and medicalizing spiritual vices (by affirming that spiritual problems are at root medical ones requiring a medical remedy). Thus, to discuss acedia adequately, one needs to integrate insights from spirituality and mental health.
The Art of Care for Body and Soul: Theology, Wisdom, and Medical Care
Ashley Moyse, PhD, Vancouver School of Theology
E. L. Mascall (1941)has argued, “Christianity has consistently claimed to be concerned with body and soul at once. And, at a time when most people seem to have the idea that religion is a purely spiritual matter, it is essential to insist on the concern that it has with the body.” A similar statement might be said of medicine. That is, at a time when most people seem to think medicine is purely a physical matter, it is essential to insist on the concern that it has with the soul. Accordingly to suggest that the physical care of the body at the hands of physicians is not also spiritual care is to inculcate a perspective that is illusory and leads to 'unwanted outcomes'. Likewise, to suggest spiritual care attends to something other than physical illness is also misleading, perpetuating the division of care—spiritual and material. But what is needed to reconcile the binary of spiritual and physical care? As a theologian I might ask, What are the implications of theology for the tendency “to keep a wall of separation between medicine and religion” (Heschel, 1946).
Perhaps the theological study of wisdom (Sophia) could provide an answer. Wisdom might help bioethics, for example, to learn how to engage the strangeness of our world and guide medicine away from the fruitless separation of physical and spiritual care. It may be that we could be trained to understand the medical professional as one whose work is a redemptive responsibility to heal a broken world. Such understanding might come when grounded upon the ethics of a formed community encountered and transformed by Wisdom. Accordingly, in order to become an authentic means of hope, to help resolve problems, and to assist the response to provide care, and to goad such care toward human flourishing, even unto death, medicine must not be the handmaid of prosperity and technological promise guided by a division of body and spirit. Theology, therefore, through its encounter with and grasping for Wisdom, might clear the space for communities to retell the stories of body and soul, in unity. It might clear the space for communities to retell the stories of the very meaning of life, death, healing, and suffering, all the while inviting others to participate in the care of whole human persons. Only then might medicine experience a liturgy for understanding the deeper meaning of things. Only then might it learn of the art of living (care) for body and soul.
Parallel Dialogue: Patristic Diagnostics, Postmodern Insight on the Care of the Soul. Implication for Contemporary Doctor-Patient Encounters
Mariana Cuceu, MD, MPH, PhD(c), University of Chicago
Ricardo Moreno, MA(c), Catholic Theological Union
“What I really wanted was a doctor who understood that a conversation was as important as a prescription; a doctor to whom healing mattered as much as state-of-the-art surgery did.” M. O'Rourke - patient
Systemic changes in the last couple of decades in our medical system have intensified the disconnect between patients and doctors. In-spite of the mantra: “patient-centered care” patient sufferance receives the least attention. Patients receive substandard care and are given poor diagnoses due to physician’s time constraints, extenuating circumstances, and other personal challenges. This very real, at times antagonistic relationship between doctor and patient actively forces doctors to remain indifferent to the patient’s needs and this affects the entire medical and healing process. The result is an emotional absence of the physician from the primary reality at hand – the diseased patient who suffers – which has profound ethical consequences. This absence matters, because how patients feel about their medical interactions does influence the efficacy of the care they receive, and doctors’ emotions in turn influence the quality of the care they provide.
It’s alarming how fast doctors’ empathy wanes; we must ask why and to what cost. The medical education system largely ignores the emotional side of health care and future doctors end up distancing themselves from what they are seeing in their medical practices. Yet the dimension of empathy remains crucial to the doctors’ humanity as well as patients’ dignity and can be key to medical efficacy. For example, studies indicate that the rate of diabetes complications in patients of doctors who score high on an empathy scale, is 40 percent lower than in patients with low-empathy doctors. These results are comparable to the benefits seen with the most intensive medical therapy for diabetes, reminding us that despite technology and pharmaceutical advances, the patient-doctor relationship is still at the heart of medicine.
This paper will present the contemporary observations of Dr. Jodi Halpern on humanizing medical practice with a parallel analysis found in the work of philosopher John C. Larchet on Christian East patristic diagnostics and, by this opening, a lucid and powerful response from the Jewish philosopher and religious thinker Emmanuel Levinas. Halpern presents the stage of today’s emotional detachment found in doctor-patient relationships clearly outlining that although technologically proficient our medical system seems to be emotionally deficient. For Halpern, the understated assumption that medical judgments should depend only on objective judgments distorts the true nature of the caretaker relationship. She asserts that a strategic emotional reasoning amidst this relationship will nourish the development of clinical empathy. This picture captured by Halpern resonates within Larchet’s reflection and understanding on the nature of patristic diagnosis on spiritual maladies and will offer deeper spiritual and interpersonal insight into these observations. Emmaunel Levinas’ thinking on the ethical vigilance of being “awake” and responsible for the care of the other draws together this work and will offer a vision for the patient caretaker relationship. Whether we accept it or not, we all share the emotional, psychological, and the spiritual reality of others and, in particular, the care taker and the patient share each other worlds in very unique and powerful ways. The implications of this sharing are profound and require deep discernment, ethical formation and spiritual atonement.