Empathy Training: The Empathy and Relational Science Program uses the results of years of research to develop the most successful training techniques for healthcare providers.
About Our Program
-- Our staff
-- Consultation services
-- Research activities
-- History of the program
What is Empathy Training?
The Empathy and Relational Science Program offers training to enhance empathy in healthcare providers.
The training incorporates translational research in the neurobiology and physiology of emotions to improve patient and health care provider relationships with an emphasis on empathy. Using didactic and experiential learning, participants learn the basic science of emotional connection. The training teaches techniques to improve detection and management of emotional states in patients, and to respond with empathy and compassion.
Empathy training also teaches techniques for emotional self-regulation and management skills for care providers. Video vignettes with simultaneous physiological displays of emotion enhance appreciation of implicit emotional states in patients as well as health care providers.
This training was the subject of a randomized, controlled trial of physicians at MGH and resulted in significant improvement in patient perception of physician empathy.
