... about themselves, the easier it becomes to understand patients. Self-awareness is described by Burnard (1994) as the evolving and expanding sense of noticing a wide range of aspects of the self. In identifying the need for greater self-awareness the nurse is first and foremost asserting the needs as an independent and autonomous human-being. By having an understanding of our own identity we are creating the ability to detach ourselves from the many problems that a patient may express in a variety of manifestations. This then allows the nurse to view problem solving through greater perspectives which encourages empathy instead of sympathy, Kalisch (1971) defines empathy as the ability to perceive the feelings of another person and to communicate this understanding to them, it may even stop the fusion of ego's where patient and nursing care boundaries are destroyed resulting in the patient losing guidance or help that they require ...

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