Drawing Out Instead of Pouring In, From Paternalism to Empowerment

The Latin root educare means to draw out what lies within. Mike quotes Daloz on guides who sometimes walk ahead, beside or behind their students, and argues that clinicians need to talk less and listen more. Jones and colleagues found the main barrier to a collaborative relationship was the clinician's own urge to treat and advise. Two reflective examples show paternalism: a 1991 account of an organist whose elbow history ignored what mattered to her, and statements from Stenner and colleagues in 2015 dominated by the word "I". Shared decision making replaces one-way information with a two-way exchange. A taxi driver in Ottawa who described physiotherapy as lovely, like a trip to the hairdresser, prompted Mike's driving instructor metaphor: a few lessons, then independence. Common learning blocks are illustrated through confused, angry, distrustful and bored patients, and the part lists stages of learning and facilitation as tools for moving toward solutions.