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EMPATHY previous
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EMPATHY, is
the process of ‘putting yourself into someone else’s
shoes’, of reaching beyond the self, understanding and feeling
what another person is understanding and feeling. Empathy facilitates
communication - communication breaks down when false presuppositions
or assumptions are made about the other person’s state. Caregiver-child
communication requires a sophisticated degree of empathy. In order
to communicate effectively the caregiver needs to be able to understand
the child’s affective and cognitive states.
Caregivers’
ability to attune with, and respond to, children’s needs and
initiatives constitutes the basis for good quality care.From repeated
attunements an infant begins to develop a sense that other people
can and will share in her feelings. This sense seems to develop
around 8 months, and continues to be shaped by intimate relationships
throughout life. When parents are misattuned to a child it is deeply
upsetting and damaging. When a parent consistently fails to show
any empathy with a range of emotions in the child – joys,
tears, needing to cuddle - the child begins to avoid expressing
and perhaps even feeling those same emotions. In this way an entire
range of emotions can begin to be obliterated from the repertoire
for intimate relations, especially if through childhood those feelings
continue to be covertly or overtly discouraged.
The ICDP programme
aims to bring out and sustain good quality interaction between caregivers
and their children, by raising the awareness of caregivers about
their children’s psycho-social needs, by increasing their
sensitivity as well as ability to empathise and respond to these
needs.
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