Dealing with Displaced Anger in Palliative Care

This assignment discusses the role of hospice nurses in dealing with displaced anger in terminally ill patients. It explores the importance of empathizing, engaging, and educating patients to alleviate suffering and improve their response to pain. The article also highlights the need for establishing concise emotional boundaries, avoiding enmeshment, and maintaining adult-adult communication to counter patient anger. Effective strategies for managing patient emotions are presented, including apologizing to patients, identifying problems, and initiating adult-adult conversations.

Running head: PALLIATIVE CARE 1
PALLIATIVE CARE: DEALING WITH DISPLACED ANGER
Name of Student
Institution Affiliation

PALLIATIVE CARE 2
PALLIATIVE CARE: DEALING WITH DISPLACED ANGER
Anger is suggested as a predictable component of the dying process. When the
terminally ill patient begins to display anger in the clinical context, all forms of
communication become strained. Hospice nurses can assist the patient to manage his or her
anger by implementing the principles of engagement. The healthcare professional will be able
to alleviate patient suffering and improve their response to pain by empathizing and engaging
with them. The hospice nurse will succeed at generating a positive impact on the patient’s
end-of-life experience by conscripting them in the procedures involved in family
reconciliation as well as educating them with regards to their conventional response to dying.
The interactions between the patient and the healthcare professional constitute both
communication and biomedical tasks (Kirby, 2018). The biomedical obligations are
embedded within the need to identify and solve the medical problem. Enlisting, educating,
empathizing, and engaging the patient entail the communication tasks. The communication
tasks relevant to ordinary clinic visits are however, prone to be negatively affected by the
patient’s displaced anger.
Engagement can assist in the creation of a robust relationship with the patient.
Relationships have emotional and behavioral elements. The patient’s expression of anger is a
demonstration that the clinical setting is emotionally intense. This can be countered through
the establishment of concise emotional boundaries. This will enable the hospice nurse to
respect the patient’s need to process his or her own emotions. Furthermore, this strategy will
assist the healthcare professional to safeguard his or her own emotional well-being.
Statements that assume ownership of the patient’s suffering should be avoided (Mendieta,
2015). This is the case especially considering the fact that such statements create confusion
with regards to the individual that will implement the emotional process during the patient’s
dying moments. This constitutes an enmeshed relationship. There is need for the hospice

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nurse to ensure that honesty prevails in conveying the message pertaining to the entity that
will be responsible for executing the emotional process. Enmeshment will only have the
effect of heightening the patient’s anger and this might in turn have a negative impact on the
healthcare professional’s emotional well-being. The language employed should encourage the
patient to process their own loneliness, sadness, fear, and anger.
Maintaining adult-adult communication can additionally, assist in countering the
patient’s anger. The distribution of power in the interactions between the nurse and the
patient must be equal. This will enable the healthcare provider to reorient and empower the
patient into the adult-adult universe. In order for this technique to be effective the caring
nurse must possess a unique set of skills. This is the case especially considering the fact that
terminally ill patients experience liberal disability and loss. Failure to accord the patient a
sufficient amount of control and power over the nurse-patient interactions will heighten his or
her sense of powerlessness and regression (Kirby, 2018). This will require the caring nurse to
be effectively prepared to accept the patient’s anger when it is directed towards him or her.
As opposed to precipitating the anger outburst, the nurse is encouraged to apologize to the
patient, identify the problem and then proceed to initiate an adult-adult conversation.

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References
Kirby, E. G. (2018). Patient centered care and turnover in hospice care organizations. Journal
of Health and Human Services Administration, 41(1), 26-51.
Mendieta, M. (2015). The dying experience at home and the hospice care organization: A
cast of nurses, family members, and the patient. Journal of Management Policy and
Practice, 16(2), 38-47.