The Dangers of Nonempathic Response

The Dangers of Nonempathic Response

Empathic people usually accept and understand others in their differences, and they communicate this sense of acceptance of others (Neukrug, 2021). However, not all leaders or decision-makers demonstrate sufficient empathy whenever major traumatic events confront individuals, particularly those from other non-dominant communities. The Flint water crisis, a human-made public health crisis that occurred between 2014 and 2016, is one of the major crises where leaders did not show sufficient empathy towards the majority African American community affected by the crisis. Our assignment writing help is at affordable prices to students of all academic levels and disciplines.

The Flint water crisis took place in Michigan and involved the Municipal Water Supply System, which decided to shift its water source to the Flint River from Lake Huron to save money. The Flint River was highly contaminated with lead, resulting in a major public health crisis. There were tens of thousands of Flint residents exposed to the highly toxic levels of lead and Legionnaire disease, which killed over 12 people and made several others sick. Notably, 57 percent of the residents in Flint are African American, and a majority of the residents, over 41 percent, live below the poverty level (Martinez, 2016).

When the crisis occurred, leaders did not acknowledge the severity of the issue; they downplayed the risk it posed to public health and even went ahead and denied responsibility for the crisis. A particular example is that of Governor Rick Snyder, among other officials, who dismissed the complaints made by the residents in regard to the poor quality of the water and insisted that it was safe to drink it. Even after several tests revealed that the water was unsafe, decision-makers questioned these tests and not the water (Karoub, 2017).

In addition, leaders failed to adequately react to the crisis in a timely manner or even offer sufficient resources to address the issue. Karoub (2017) claims that action to help Flint started in late 2015, a year after residents had reported the bad-tasting and heavily discolored water. During this time, residents were forced to use bottled water to sustain their daily needs, which was highly expensive and inconvenient given that the population was composed of the majority poor. Furthermore, instead of listening to the concerns raised by the community and taking the necessary action, the officials dismissed such complaints and even went ahead to blame the problem on the city’s failure to correctly treat the water. They failed to acknowledge the role that they played in the crisis and the harm that this had caused to residents. Scholars believe that the city was mainly neglected because it comprises a majority of black and poor individuals, making it a form of environmental racism (Martinez, 2016).

Leaders should have listened to the community’s concerns, acknowledged their anger and concerns, and taken immediate action, given that individuals’ health was at risk. They should have shown empathy towards the community by acknowledging the effect of this problem on the community and offering sufficient resources to help them deal with the problem while apologizing for their role in the crisis. Lastly, they should have taken steps to prevent similar incidents from occurring in the future. A thorough investigation should have been made, and officials should have been held accountable for mistakes made.

Human service professionals need to manage various responsibilities and roles to meet the needs of a community, group or individual. These roles require the use of empathy so as to correctly comprehend the issues, build trusting relations, and meet the clients’ needs (Bayne et al., 2012). Being empathic is considered the most crucial quality that results in positive client outcomes (Neukrug, 2021). When a human service professional fails to demonstrate empathy, they risk traumatizing the client, worsening their problem, and destroying the client’s trust in the professional and the system in general. This would mean worsened mental health and social inequality for the client. Nonempathic responses by human service professionals can also cause a decline in public trust, resulting in reduced funding for the programs and poor support for policies aimed at addressing social problems. Failure to demonstrate empathy implies that the human service professional practitioner does not fully comprehend the extent of the problem, and therefore, finding the appropriate solution becomes problematic (Bayne et al., 2012).

References

Bayne, H. B., Pusateri, C., & Dean-Nganga, L. (2012). The use of empathy in human services: Strategies for diverse professional roles. Journal of Human Services, 32(1), 72–88.

Karoub, J. (2017). Commission: ‘Systemic racism’ at root of Flint water crisis. AP News. Retrieved March 17, 2023 from https://apnews.com/article/us-news-race-and-ethnicity-mi-state-wire-flint-michigan-df42de2ec4424193866467a2981ccb51

Martinez, M. (2016). Flint, Michigan: Did race and poverty factor into water crisis? CNN. Retrieved March 17, 2023, from https://edition.cnn.com/2016/01/26/us/flint-michigan-water-crisis-race-poverty/index.html

Neukrug, E. (2021). Skills and techniques for human service professionals: Counseling environment, helping skills, treatment issues (2nd ed.). Cognella.

ORDER A PLAGIARISM-FREE PAPER HERE

We’ll write everything from scratch

Write a 2-page paper analyzing a current or historical example where leaders or decision-makers did not demonstrate sufficient empathy or empathic skills related to trauma, culture, and confrontation. Be sure to do the following:

The Dangers of Nonempathic Response

Describe the event.
Provide specific examples that illustrate the absence of empathy-related skills.
Explain what leaders or decision-makers could have done differently. Justify your response.
Explain the potential consequences of a human services professional practitioner displaying a similar lack of empathy. How might that impact the service user they are working with as well as the larger society?
Use the Learning Resources to support your analysis.

Resources
Neukrug, E. (2021). Skills and techniques for human service professionals: Counseling environment, helping skills, treatment issues (2nd ed.). Cognella.
Chapter 7: Advanced Skills and Specialized Training (pp. 35–46)
Chapter 9: Culturally Competent Helping (pp. 151–176)
Bayne, H. B., Pusateri, C., & Dean-Nganga, L. (2012). The use of empathy in human services: Strategies for diverse professional rolesLinks to an external site.. Journal of Human Services, 32(1), 72–88
TEDx Talks. (2017, December 1). Juliana Mosley: Cultural humilityLinks to an external site. [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ww_ml21L7Ns
Note: The approximate length of this media piece is 17 minutes.