Developing Empathy Through Confluent Education

Background and Purpose. Although empathy is a highly valued component of health care, there is little agreement as to exactly what it is and how it might be developed in physical therapist students. Position and Rationale. This article explores the nature and process of empathy as well as the constituent personal capacities that enable empathic function. It then proposes that confluent education, an approach that deliberately integrates affective and cognitive learning, may be a valuable educational vehicle for the development of empathy in physical therapist students. Specific features of confluent education are described, as are various strategies for creating confluence in professional education. These features and techniques of confluent education are then correlated with the enabling personal capacities of the empathic process so as to clarify the proposed linkage between this specific educational modality and the development of empathy in physical therapist students. Discussion and Conclusions. Insofar as empathy is a key constituent of effective interactions between physical therapists and patients, it is important that the training of physical therapist students facilitate this capacity. Confluent education, with its emphasis on the integration of affective and cognitive learning, may provide one such approach to fulfilling this objective.