Empathy, caring and compassion - a Freudian critique of nursing work.

Freudian psychoanalytic concepts offer a useful means of pulling the rug out from under ideas central to nursing's self-image. For example, profoundly difficult questions are raised for our attachment to and identification with empathy, caring, and compassion once we entertain the possibility of the unconscious and the "death drive". In this seminar, drawing on the earlier work of Menzies-Lyth and others, Michael Traynor outlines and develops recent published work he has undertaken.