Empathic Art: Goya and Dr. Arrieta

摘要

The patient is the one with the disease. The doctor is the one with the empathy. The patient's body and its symptoms are the existential proof of the patient's own experience of illness. And whatever emotions and impressions this body conveys through its appearance, speech, or physical feel will often be useful in both diagnosis and therapy. If the doctor can read and interpret the patient's body, she/he will provide better care. As every physician knows, a patient is not just a set of numbers or a case in a textbook; if treated in this detached way, the patient loses in the medical encounter. In particular, professional detachment may fail the patient by refusing to recognize him/her as an individual. The study of great works of art represents one of several roads to an empathic approach to suffering patients. Based upon close observation of an individual painting, the interested clinician can educate him/herself about the nature and significance of empathy. One particular work in the category of empathic art stands out: the last self-portrait painted by the Spanish artist Francisco Jose de Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828). In his Self-Portrait with Dr. Arrieta (1820) (Figure), the empathy instructors are the artist's body and the body of his physician