A nurse is spending time with a patient, who has recently been diagnosed with breast cancer. The ...

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Empathy is the ability to understand and accept another person's perspective. Although no one can ever totally know another's experiences, a nurse can try to understand what the person is ex-periencing. Focusing directs conversation to a specific topic or issue when a discussion becomes unclear. Self-disclosures are personal statements intentionally revealed to the other person. Sympathy is the concern, sorrow, or pity that you feel for a patient when you personally identify with his or her needs. Unlike empathy, which tries to understand a patient's experience, sympa-thy takes a subjective look at the patient's world (Oh, I know just what you mean. I hate feeling that way.).