Judith Norman recently wrote:
>Dear All,
>What an exciting idea Nigel has raised about the affective style being
>important.
>I'm torn between being carried along with great enthusiasm for the potential
>of that, and a sceptical mistrust of anything that will increase patients'
>dependance
>on (me/hosp/med).
Just a quick response:
This whole and very real problem of 'affect' in professional health-serving
relationships is dealt with in a number of contexts.
Judith, your 'eliciting self-efficacy statements' strategy might clearly
help, but it could also be rather superficial in itself, leading to 'verbal
compliance' by clients who actually don't believe very fundamentally these
statements you are anxious that they should make.
At the other end of the spectrum from the rather behaviourist 'eliciting
positive statements' would be the much more complex (and time-consuming!)
practice of psychoanalysts working with 'transference' (and
counter-transference'). I think this needs to be at least thought about,
particularly since most of us will never be (or want to be) psychoanalysts.
Wendy Hollway's "The psycho-social subject in 'evidence-based practice'"
(Journal of Social Work Practice vol.15(1) May 2001 pp.9-22) provides a
brief introduction to this rich body of work about 'handling affect' (in
oneself and one's clients). Another and very readable text full of little
vignettes is Patrick Casement's little book, 'On learning from the patient'
(1985 Tavistock).
Can anybody else think of others with 'handy small narratives'?
Best wishes
Tom
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