Stephen Buetow – författare

Person-centred health care is increasingly endorsed as a key element of high-quality care, yet, in practice, it often means patient-centred health care. This book scrutinizes the principle of primacy of patient welfare, which, although deeply embedded in health professionalism, is long overdue for critical analysis and debate. It appears incontestable because patients have greater immediate health needs than clinicians and the patient-clinician encounter is often recognized as a moral enterprise as well as a service contract. However, Buetow argues that the implication that clinician welfare is secondary can harm clinicians, patients and health system performance.Revaluing participants in health care as moral equals, this book advocates an ethic of virtue to respect the clinician as a whole person whose self-care and care from patients can benefit both parties, because their moral interests intertwine and warrant equal consideration. It then considers how to move from values including moral equality in health care to practice for people in their particular situations. Developing a genuinely inclusive concept of person-centred care – accepting clinicians as moral equals – it also facilitates the coalescence of patient-centred care and evidence-based health care.This reflective and provocative work develops a constructive alternative to the taken-for-granted principle of primacy of patient welfare. It is of interest to students and academics in the health and caring sciences, philosophy, ethics, medical humanities and health management.

This book explores how person-centred health care could be refined to help persons alleviate pain-related distress and construct pain as a potentially positive experience. Rethinking Pain in Person-Centred Health Care is a fascinating contribution to the multidisciplinary literature on person-centred health care, pain and ethics.Traditionally, Western intellectual culture has downplayed the intuitive and emotional, promoting instead rational, natural-scientific perspectives. Applied to pain, an instrumental approach promotes the immediate and effective relief of pain, due to the widespread suffering and expense it can cause. However, different persons experience pain in different ways and Buetow moves beyond a commitment to eliminate pain to exploring how benefits of pain could include creating and managing meaning from pain. Rather than always looking to put pain behind them, persons may flourish by moving around pain, through pain, into pain and above pain. Buetow argues that this model depends on adopting a person-centred approach to health care, focusing less on the condition of pain and more on mobilizing the persons who present with, and manage, pain. This book will be of interest to professionals and academics/researchers in the fields of psychology and psychiatry who have a special interest in people with persistent pain conditions. It will also be an invaluable resource for physiotherapists, chronic pain consultants in secondary care and GPs.

This book explores how person-centred health care could be refined to help persons alleviate pain-related distress and construct pain as a potentially positive experience. Rethinking Pain in Person-Centred Health Care is a fascinating contribution to the multidisciplinary literature on person-centred health care, pain and ethics.Traditionally, Western intellectual culture has downplayed the intuitive and emotional, promoting instead rational, natural-scientific perspectives. Applied to pain, an instrumental approach promotes the immediate and effective relief of pain, due to the widespread suffering and expense it can cause. However, different persons experience pain in different ways and Buetow moves beyond a commitment to eliminate pain to exploring how benefits of pain could include creating and managing meaning from pain. Rather than always looking to put pain behind them, persons may flourish by moving around pain, through pain, into pain and above pain. Buetow argues that this model depends on adopting a person-centred approach to health care, focusing less on the condition of pain and more on mobilizing the persons who present with, and manage, pain. This book will be of interest to professionals and academics/researchers in the fields of psychology and psychiatry who have a special interest in people with persistent pain conditions. It will also be an invaluable resource for physiotherapists, chronic pain consultants in secondary care and GPs.

This innovative book provides a new conceptual analysis of loneliness – a condition associated with severe health consequences, including increased morbidity and early death.Arguing that social connection is not the only answer, it explores pathways for transforming loneliness to healthy solitude. The first part of the book draws on the humanities and arts, including psychology, philosophy, and literature to analyse the common, and potentially serious, problem of loneliness. It makes the case that the condition is less a deficiency than a state of self-disconnection that modernity feeds through social forces. The second part of the book looks at how person-centred health care can help educate persons to transform loneliness into healthy solitude. It provides an analysis of self-connection and spiritual connection, discussing how these forms of contact can mitigate risks associated with both lack of social connection, and social connection itself, such as self-disconnection and rejection by others. It goes on to demonstrate that connection to the self and spirit can make aloneness a resource and facilitate access to benefits of connecting with others.This thought-provoking book provides students, scholars, and practitioners from a range of health and social care backgrounds with a new way of thinking about, researching, and practising with lonely people.

This innovative book provides a new conceptual analysis of loneliness – a condition associated with severe health consequences, including increased morbidity and early death.Arguing that social connection is not the only answer, it explores pathways for transforming loneliness to healthy solitude. The first part of the book draws on the humanities and arts, including psychology, philosophy, and literature to analyse the common, and potentially serious, problem of loneliness. It makes the case that the condition is less a deficiency than a state of self-disconnection that modernity feeds through social forces. The second part of the book looks at how person-centred health care can help educate persons to transform loneliness into healthy solitude. It provides an analysis of self-connection and spiritual connection, discussing how these forms of contact can mitigate risks associated with both lack of social connection, and social connection itself, such as self-disconnection and rejection by others. It goes on to demonstrate that connection to the self and spirit can make aloneness a resource and facilitate access to benefits of connecting with others.This thought-provoking book provides students, scholars, and practitioners from a range of health and social care backgrounds with a new way of thinking about, researching, and practising with lonely people.

This thought-provoking book exposes the values, judgements, and hierarchies that underlie ageism in care settings. Destabilizing the assumption that biases like ageism are always bad, Buetow suggests that ageism is normatively neutral and that truly person-centred care requires situated acknowledgement of and responsiveness to its negative and positive aspects.Buetow contends that respecting meaningful age differences between persons as moral agents puts ageism on the radar of care environments, weakening barriers to engagement. His analysis moves from concern for age-friendliness to prudent ageism that enables person-centred care to apply practical wisdom in everyday, age-sensitive judgement and decision-making. Challenging political correctness and advocating for justice rather than social justice, Buetow discusses how prudent ageism may advantage some age groups over others in particular circumstances while providing a moral structure for managing real rather than socially constructed differences.Looking at how age-sensitive judgments combined with a person first approach can inform research, policy, and practice, this book will interest students and researchers from fields like health and social care, and disciplines, such as sociology, psychology, politics, and philosophy.

This thought-provoking book exposes the values, judgements, and hierarchies that underlie ageism in care settings. Destabilizing the assumption that biases like ageism are always bad, Buetow suggests that ageism is normatively neutral and that truly person-centred care requires situated acknowledgement of and responsiveness to its negative and positive aspects.Buetow contends that respecting meaningful age differences between persons as moral agents puts ageism on the radar of care environments, weakening barriers to engagement. His analysis moves from concern for age-friendliness to prudent ageism that enables person-centred care to apply practical wisdom in everyday, age-sensitive judgement and decision-making. Challenging political correctness and advocating for justice rather than social justice, Buetow discusses how prudent ageism may advantage some age groups over others in particular circumstances while providing a moral structure for managing real rather than socially constructed differences.Looking at how age-sensitive judgments combined with a person first approach can inform research, policy, and practice, this book will interest students and researchers from fields like health and social care, and disciplines, such as sociology, psychology, politics, and philosophy.