title: Caring expressions.
abstract: Nurses are increasingly being urged to show empathy to their patients and to dispense reassurance as readily as medicines. In addition, whether in surgery, medicine or psychiatry, they are being expected to assess their patients' emotional needs as routinely as they have been required to assess their physical requirements. One attractive aspect of these developments for many nurses is that they emphasise the 'human' quality of nursing. Good nursing becomes, in large part, a matter of simply developing a good relationship with the patient, as an equal with him or her. In turn, it is sometimes claimed, many of these skills may not need to be taught; perhaps all that needs to be done is that nurses should be helped to act normally with their patients, and say or do the things that come 'naturally'. The importance of skills acquisition then gives way to other concepts such as 'facilitation', 'self-awareness training', 'experiential learning'. Students may even begin to take on the [illegibal word] implicit in these developments, that they do not need to be taught special skills by experts; they may come to see this as one area of nursing in which they can be their own teachers.
authors.forename: Gerald
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Farrell
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University College, London.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Salmon