Articles: empathy.
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Is emotional contagion special? An fMRI study on neural systems for affective and cognitive empathy.
Empathy allows us to simulate others' affective and cognitive mental states internally, and it has been proposed that the mirroring or motor representation systems play a key role in such simulation. As emotions are related to important adaptive events linked with benefit or danger, simulating others' emotional states might constitute of a special case of empathy. In this functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study we tested if emotional versus cognitive empathy would facilitate the recruitment of brain networks involved in motor representation and imitation in healthy volunteers. ⋯ Further, thalamus and primary somatosensory and motor cortices showed increased functional coupling during emotional versus cognitive empathy. The results suggest that emotional empathy is special. Emotional empathy facilitates somatic, sensory, and motor representation of other peoples' mental states, and results in more vigorous mirroring of the observed mental and bodily states than cognitive empathy.
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The aim of this pilot prospective study was to investigate the relationships between general practitioners (GPs) empathy, patient enablement, and patient-assessed outcomes in primary care consultations in an area of high socio-economic deprivation in Scotland. ⋯ Ways of increasing GP empathy and patient enablement need to be established in order to maximise patient outcomes. Consultation length and relational continuity of care are known factors: the benefit of training and support for GPs needs to be further investigated.
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To describe support needs and comfort level of labor nurses caring for families experiencing perinatal loss. ⋯ Initial and ongoing education of nurses about perinatal bereavement care is needed. Effective strategies for coping during and after providing care would support nurses in meeting the emotional challenge of providing high quality perinatal bereavement care.
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To present an explanatory theory-based model of child neglect. This model does not address neglectful behaviors of parents with mental retardation, alcohol or drug abuse, or severe mental health problems. In this model parental behavior aimed to satisfy a child's need is considered a helping behavior and, as a consequence, child neglect is considered as a specific type of non-helping behavior. ⋯ The present theoretical model suggests that different typologies of neglectful parents could be developed based on different reasons that parents might not to experience emotions that motivate helping behaviors. The model can be helpful to promote new empirical studies about the etiology of different groups of neglectful families.