Preliminary Explorations of Neighborhood Philosophy and Healthcare Relationships

Reeb, Bridgette

Preliminary Explorations of Neighborhood Philosophy and Healthcare Relationships

Persistent URL

https://hdl.handle.net/10456/59317

Author(s)

Reeb, Bridgette

Date Issued

May 6, 2025

Abstract

Neighborhood is more than geographical. It’s a way that we relate to ourselves and others. I develop a relational theory that I call “neighborhood philosophy.” I discovered neighborhood philosophy through the nexus of the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard, the iconic children’s television show host Fred Rogers of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, and my late husband Jim Reeb. I argue that neighborly love needs to be experienced in context to be understood, which makes modeling neighborly love critical to promoting neighborhood. I propose that while direct and prolonged exposure to neighborly relational models is the best way to help people “catch” neighborly “attitudes,” indirect exposures through media can still have a profoundly positive impact on one’s capacity for neighborhood. I draw on examples from Rogers’ Neighborhood to argue that neighborhood philosophy-informed relational models for patients in educational media could help enable them to be better neighbors to themselves and their healthcare partners. All parties in the healthcare relationship should have access to intentionally designed and contextualized relational models. Physicians have access to several different kinds of intentionally designed contextualized physician-patient relationship (PPR) models. What patients have is almost exclusively designed for pediatric patients. I show that the majority of the relational models available for non-pediatric patients are not intentionally designed to model healthy PPRs. The models designed for pediatric PPRs are not appropriate for all patient stages of life. I imagine what sorts of moral and emotional concepts, dispositions, and actions might inform a neighborly PPR model that could help begin to address this gap in public health education.

Major

Philosophy

Honors

Philosophy, 2025

First Reader(s)

Farrelly-Jackson, Steven