Patients are persons

Our choice of the responsive way or the resistant way determines how we see other people and how we act toward them.

Patients are persons

Introduction

The image we see patients when we encounter, determines our vision of them, we can see in two ways:

1. The responsive way: People with a wide range of feelings, hopes, aspirations, strengths and weaknesses.
   
2. The resistant way: Irrelevant, unimportant, or un-worthy of our help-as objects that can hinder us or can help us accomplish our own goals.
   

In this Article we are going to use a "pharmacy fable" to explore the impact of our chosen way of being on patient care.

Victims of attack by others

The way you see the world, can be changed. We can choose either of two ways to respond to people. “Arbinger” calls them the responsive way and the resistant way.

The responsive way: we see people as people. We are open and responsive to their concerns. We see their pain, their disappointment, their joy, their happiness...even their mistrust.

The resistant way: we see people as objects. We resist their reality. We see them as less important, less relevant, less real, or a threat—if we see them at all. In the resistant way, people are irrelevant or they are obstacles (a threat to us) or vehicles (someone to do our bidding).

In this way of being, we are focused on ourselves and don't really see the other person.

The point is that we choose our way of being. Our way of being goes deeper than how we behave outwardly. we are always in relationship with people. Who we are, our “I,” is not a separate "I." It is an "I" always in relationship to others.

• When we are in the responsive way of being, we relate to people in the way “Buber” called I-thou, or I-you.
• In the resistant way, we relate as I-it. The other person is no longer real to us, no longer a person. For this to happen, we have to become blind to the reality that even though we may not like the way they are acting, people are still people, not objects.

We are always in relationship and always choosing our way of being, which determines how we see another person. People really aren't objects; it's just how we see them.

When is a person not a person?

A person is always a person. Despite the fact that people are always people, they can become objects to us. But, in truth, do they become objects?

It's how we see them. They did not cease being people. We may not like what they do. They may not do what we want them to do. They may not seem important at the moment. But they are still people.

Self-betrayal or Self-deception
Refusal to see a person as a person

“Warner” and “Arbinger” call this self-betrayal or self-deception. It is what happens when we don't do what we know is right or when we do something other than what we know to be right. We betray ourselves.

It also happens when we don't even know we have a problem.

• When we betray ourselves or deceive ourselves, we always justify our actions. 
• We have to justify to ourselves why we did what we did.
• We say, how am I supposed to act toward someone who is so rude, so negative, someone who complains all the time? 
• We usually exaggerate our strengths and overemphasize the other person's weaknesses.
• These thoughts justify our own feelings about the other person and explain to us why we acted as we did. 
• It may happen, when a person, comes in, and because of our history with him (and his present way), we respond in the resistant way.

We don't see him as a person, and we can't see his pain and his discomfort with life in general. We react to him rudeness and negativity as if he is the problem, and then we justify our self-betrayal in not treating him in a caring way.

This self-justification further blinds us to the truth.

Our feeling victimized, that causes us to choose the resistant way of being, and betray ourselves by not treating others as persons. Then, justify our actions by blaming others on the way they treated us, and all this leads to us not seeing them or to our own betrayal.

Being "in the box”

According to “Arbinger”, the resistant way is also called being "in the box." When we're in the box we cannot see people as people. We get in the box through self-betrayal or acting in a resistant way toward another person.

The interesting thing is that:

• People can carry these boxes around with them.
• We can develop them in childhood.
• Many people have very large boxes.

In the box, we have self-justifying images, such as "I deserve respect, I deserve appreciation, I'm important, I'm better, I'm smarter."

People deserve to be respected   

The natural correct basic belief is that all people should be respected. But a self-justifying image can prevent us from seeing the other person as a person, and then the last thing we're likely to do is be respectful.  

1. When we self-righteously say, "I deserve respect," we are most likely to be disrespectful toward the other person, as if they don't deserve respect.
2. We respect people when we see them as people, with cares, concerns, problems, anxieties, and joys similar to what we experience.
3. Because we are using our self-justifying image to explain away our disdain toward someone. Because all of us carry our boxes around, we can be in the box or out of the box in any encounter. 
4. Anything we communicate while we are in the box will either cause more problems or, at best, be viewed as phony. 
5. People respond to how we are being and not to what we are doing. 
6. Therefore, if we are trying to be understanding but are in the box, people will sense that we're not being genuine. Also, because we don't see people as people when we're in the box or in the resistant way of being, we are likely to say something that will escalate any disagreement or problem we perceive in the conversation, even though we may be trying to do otherwise.

All that stuff we sometimes learn about communication being the way to solve problems doesn't work when we're in the box. It has a chance of working only when we are in the responsive way of being.

Responsibility, choice, and way of being

Many of us would, found it easier to blame others for the way they acted toward us. Some believed that they were not responsible for their actions toward others, that they caused their feelings and actions.

• It is far more difficult, yet more rewarding, to consciously choose to see people as they truly are, with all of their joys, foibles, and struggles.
• When we cease to see our patients as people, we run the risk of withdrawing care that is necessary for their well-being. This care is part of a covenant we make with patients when we become health care providers
• The essence is that our way of being determines how we relate to others.

We can choose to see them either as people with cares, concerns, feelings, emotions, desires, dreams, strengths, and weaknesses, or as objects-individuals who are irrelevant to us, obstacles, or vehicles for getting what we want.

Conclusion

“Martin Buber” described these ways of relating as I-thou and I-it.

We choose to see others as people or as objects. It is not the other person's behavior that establishes how we act toward that person; we are not victims of the behavior of others.

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