PART 1 Starting with ourselves

This section looks at the strong emotional influences experienced by health promoters in dealing with HIV and AIDS. Maeve Moynihan poses a number of questions that could be asked to illustrate how emotions can influence the professional judgement of health workers. Hilary Dixon and Jane Springham take the exercise further. From their experience of training professionals to respond more effectively to AIDS, they are aware of the strong emotional reactions that may emerge in response to the concepts of death, promiscuity, anger, sexuality and pain. They provide examples of how confused or unrecognized values and feelings can impede education, and they offer practical suggestions for overcoming those barriers.