Therapeutic Alliance | Nursing

Running Head: NURSING
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Slide 1: Communication skills for therapeutic alliance with patients
For a therapist it is highly crucial to develop an effective therapeutic alliance with the client or a
healthcare service user since it imposes high impact on the recovery rate of the same. Two of the
basic communication skills that are highly crucial for a therapist or counsellor to possess include
active listening as well as demonstrating cultural competences.
Now, when it comes to active listening, first thing we need to consider is that demonstrating an
active listening helps the client to express their concerns in an effective as well as open manner.
While a cline tells a therapist his or her story, it is comprised of mixture of experiences, affects,
behaviours as well as experiences (Halkett et al., 2016). The therapist has to listen to the mix of
experiences, behavior and feelings the client uses to describe his or her problem situation. Also
“hear” what the client is not saying. It also helps the therapist to interprets the non verbal
massages of the client. Therapists should learn how to read and respond to non-verbal signals
(posture), expression and expressions, facial (smiles, frowns, lifted eyebrows, bent lips), speech,
and so forth. This includes the physiological reaction (fitness, height, weight, skin, facial
appearance), and the associated action (ton, tone, level of speech, strength, inflective, word
spacings, focus, pauses, silences and smoothing), observable physiological responses (fitness,
transient rash, blushing, paleness) and pupil dilation. Thus active listening can help the therapists
to understand the client so that effective therapy can be given leading to an efferent therapeutic
alliance between client and therapist (Hennrick & Byrd, 2019).
The second factor which is highly crucial for an efficient therapeutic alliance includes cultural
competence. The culture of the client is an integral part of his or her personality and lack of
cultural competence of the therapists can not only impact the therapeutic alliance adversely but

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can even lead to legal issues. Hence, while communicating with the client, it is highly crucial for
the therapist to demonstrate respect for his or her culture also suggest therapy that does not
hinder cultural or religious belief of the client.
Slide 2: Indentifying components of motivational interview
It can be said that the major components of motivational interview possess direct relation with
the degree of therapeutic alliance between the therapist and the healthcare consumer.
The first component of MI is demonstrating empathy. It is the most crucial factor to be
considered by the therapist while conducting a therapy since lack of empathy towards the client
as well as his or her condition may lead to elimination of therapeutic alliance. Hence while
conducting the therapy, along with active listing the therapist must show genuine concern by
asking questions that demonstrate respect for the client, his or her culture as well as concerns
(Syzdek et al., 2016). Also, the therapist must avoid asking distracting questions to the clients
and ensure effective communication while listening to the issues of the client. This
communication can be non verbal like “frequent nodding of head” as well as accepting the
ambivalence as normal.
The second component includes developing discripency. People are more likely to improve if
their conduct is strongly at odds with their own moral beliefs and priorities. A therapist who uses
MI on a client who doesn't care about change will benefit through "increasing conflicts." This
tends to shed a light on the gap in what the person thinks he or she needs and wants to do. A
larger difference can help an person discover his own inspiration to improve (Piatt & Chiasson,
2016). The idea that the company does not offer explanations for improvement, rather the client