In The Empathy Exams, Jamison interweaves her own life experiences within a medical actor’s script as she explores the ways people give and receive empathy to demonstrate the systematic way in which empathy is achieved. In her book, Trusting Performance, Naomi Rokotnitz explores how performances work to “[open] new avenues for communication and encouraging trust.” However, by analyzing the ways Jamison’s patient outline functions to hinder and uncover problems in the idea of empathy itself, I will propose that The Empathy Exams reveals the ways in which empathy works more so as a mechanical performance than as an organic approach to understanding another human being, i.e. empathy is a learned act rather than something that comes naturally.
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Likewise, her case summary is given in brief and simple sentences which express a detached tone, even though they are supposed to express crucial information to the actor (in this case Jamison) about the character she is trying to play (empathize with). Ultimately, Jamison’s use of a medical script in an essay that examines the way people give and receive empathy draws a parallel between medical acting and the act of empathizing that illustrates the mechanical feature behind empathy. She is, quite literally, told to empathize with her character through a script. While her use of the personal pronoun “you” could be seen as an attempt to ease the act of empathizing, the dull short-clipped sentences it is used in only serves to accentuate the meticulousness of …show more content…
We can thus see that there are limitations to empathy that stem from the fact that it is a methodical practice, formatted in such a way that it focuses on specific bits of information. More particularly, the essay is structured in the typical medical script outline as to include the patient’s “Name”, “Case Summary”, “Medication History”, and “Medical History”. Though these categories are designed to provide more information about the patient’s situation, this contradicts Jamison’s own point that “no trauma has discrete edges” (5) by constricting a patient and their suffering to their name, case summary, medication history, and medical history. This contradiction shines a light on a key problem with empathizing: it requires limiting a person’s suffering to specific parameters that ignore “a horizon of context that extends beyond what you can see” (5), which results in the marginalization of their other experiences and thus a poor understanding of others’
Likewise, her case summary is given in brief and simple sentences which express a detached tone, even though they are supposed to express crucial information to the actor (in this case Jamison) about the character she is trying to play (empathize with). Ultimately, Jamison’s use of a medical script in an essay that examines the way people give and receive empathy draws a parallel between medical acting and the act of empathizing that illustrates the mechanical feature behind empathy. She is, quite literally, told to empathize with her character through a script. While her use of the personal pronoun “you” could be seen as an attempt to ease the act of empathizing, the dull short-clipped sentences it is used in only serves to accentuate the meticulousness of …show more content…
We can thus see that there are limitations to empathy that stem from the fact that it is a methodical practice, formatted in such a way that it focuses on specific bits of information. More particularly, the essay is structured in the typical medical script outline as to include the patient’s “Name”, “Case Summary”, “Medication History”, and “Medical History”. Though these categories are designed to provide more information about the patient’s situation, this contradicts Jamison’s own point that “no trauma has discrete edges” (5) by constricting a patient and their suffering to their name, case summary, medication history, and medical history. This contradiction shines a light on a key problem with empathizing: it requires limiting a person’s suffering to specific parameters that ignore “a horizon of context that extends beyond what you can see” (5), which results in the marginalization of their other experiences and thus a poor understanding of others’