Teaching Empathy. Interventions that have shown to improve empathy: Research clearly shows that empathy can be taught1-3. Following measures have shown to improve empathy.

Abstract

Holding the correct posture, maintaining the eye contact, assessing the patient’s feeling correctly, responding appropriately with student’s face, saying the
patient’s feelings in student’s own words can improve
communication and empathy4. Interpersonal skills
development is considered as an essential prerequisite to demonstrate empathic behavior5, 6. Empathy
can be enhanced by educational programmes to improve students' interpersonal skills that implicitly imply enhancement of the capacity for empathy7-9.
Suchman et al10,11 identified three basic communication skills namely, "recognition" of patient's negative
emotions, concerns, and inner experiences
(cognition); "exploration" of these emotions, concerns, and experiences (understanding); and
"acknowledging" them to generate a feeling in the
patient of being understood (communicating). These
three skills have been usedto identify and promote
empathy hence ust nodding or saying: "I understand
your concern; let's work on it together" can improve
the communication process12.
Hence nonverbal cues includeing: changes in tone of
voice, eye contact, gaze and aversion of gaze, silence, laughter, teary eyes, facial expressions, hand
and body movements, trembling, touch, physical distance, leaning forward or backward, sighs, or other
signs of distress or uncomfortableness can help in
establishing an empathic clinician-patient relationship13-15.Psychological effects of nonverbal cues such
as folded arms (more likely to indicate defensiveeness, coldness, rejection, or inaccessibility) or moderately open arms (more likely to convey acceptance
and warmth) can also be taught in interpersonal skills
training programs16. Also, teaching clinicians to try to
mirror patients' postures, gestures, respiration rates,
tempo and pitch of speech, and language pattern can
contribute to forming an empathic engagement17.