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Although empathy has been a consistent theme in the nursing literature for the last 50 years, it continues to be surrounded by concept confusion. The empathy literature reveals various definitions of empathy most often based on the theoretical perspectives of disciplines other than nursing. It has now been 20 years since Gagan (1983) declared that further research on nurses and nursing empathy should cease until conceptual clarity for the discipline of nursing could be developed. Alligood (1992) and the Empathy Research Team at the University of Tennessee (Alligood, Evans, & Wilt, 1995; Alligood & May, 2000; Evans, Wilt, & Alligood, 1998; Walker & Alligood, 2001) accepted Gagan's challenge and developed three theories of empathy from a nursing framework.
In this chapter, we present the theories of nursing empathy discovered in King's (1981) three systems and the educational application of the personal system theory in nursing education. The shift to trait empathy, from state empathy, is vital for educators to recognize the importance of the human developmental empathy trait within nursing students and to revolutionize their teaching-learning activities for empathy in nursing curricula. The human developmental approach to empathy that is proposed requires educator recognition and valuing of the capacities the student brings to nursing. It also requires facilitating the students' awareness and valuing of their own individual empathie abilities throughout their nursing education. Therefore, the role of the educator requires creative teaching in an empathic relationship with the student.
BACKGROUND
Nurse educators have included empathy in nursing education and their discussions of what makes a "good nurse" since the mid-twentieth century. Recently there has been increasing recognition by the general public media of the importance of empathy throughout our lives. In the area of child development, a national competition held to learn the secret of the "Strongest Kids in America" noted that compassion and the capacity to have empathy for others was among the common values in the 25 finalists.
At the other end of the lifespan, findings from a landmark study of aging have suggested that aging is controlled by how we live. Walker (2001), writing about successful aging from the study by Harvard researcher George Vaillant, notes that empathy and the capacity to imagine how others see their world is an essential...