Empower paediatric patients: The purpose of curiosity

The purpose of curiosity

Astrid M. Koenig

Curiosity is needed to explore new situations.

Fear of a new situation and curiosity about the new situation are in balance.

Fear sees everything as a threat, curiosity sees everything as adventure.

Same thing, opposite emotional effects.

An example of this comes to mind, when you remember the last time you went on holiday.

You deliberately went to a new environment, tried a new routine, some new food, …

Here the main emotion was not fear, but curiosity.

The reason for this very different response is your choice to expose yourself to the new experience.

Curiosity is an intrinsic human need.

We seek new information and new sensory experiences.

This motivates exploratory behaviour.

Curiosity leads us to lean forward, to go ahead, to open up to the environment, to make ourselves available for new impressions.

Curiosity allows us to connect to our environment and to other people.

While fear triggers us to protect ourselves, curiosity opens us up.

In my practice, curiosity is one major factor for a successful interaction between myself and my patient.

It is known that fear reduces curiosity, but also curiosity works great as an antidote for fear.

Curiosity is needed to explore new situations, even in a doctor’s office.

Therefore, I intentionally aim to trigger curiosity as much as possible to minimize fear.

I noticed that whenever I manage to shift the child’s attitude to become curious about me and the things to come, the game is won.

This needs to happen during the first couple of seconds of our encounter. When I manage to trigger curiosity, the consultation will go just fine.

I will describe, in the next blog, how a mindset of curiosity can be intentionally triggered.

We need the (paediatric) patient to become curious to start any cooperation.