THERAPEUTIC COMMUNICATION Part 1: Communication Skills for Nurses

Running head: THERAPEUTIC COMMUNICATION
THERAPEUTIC COMMUNICATION
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THERAPEUTIC COMMUNICATION
Part 1:
The ability to communicate in nursing profession is an important skill that is required for
development of effective relationship with patients can ensure safety in healthcare services
provided to the patients. Nurses need to speak to several of people coming from different
educational, social as well as cultural backgrounds (Arnold & Boggs, 2015). This needs to be
done in an effective, caring as well as professional manner in ways that the patients feel satisfied.
Studies are of the opinion that effective communication has many benefits like communication
helps in contributing to the ability of nurses in providing individualized care. Nurses who take
considerable amount of time for understanding the unique challenges and concerns of the
patients would be better prepared to advocate on their behalf and also address the issues of the
nurse successfully (Riley, 2015). Therefore, greater focus on communication is seen to lead to
better outcomes in most cases. Patients are seen to feel that are receiving the entire attention of
the nursing professionals during the interaction and therefore they are likely to disclose true
extent of their feelings and symptoms much quicker (Maclean et al., 2017). Interpersonal
communication can thereby help in satisfying the innate needs of the patients like feelings of
love, confidence and safety and all these factors are found to be extremely important for the
treatment and recovery of the patient.
Studies have put forward various important ways of therapeutic communication that help
in establishing effective nurse-patient relationship. In order to do so firstly, the nurse should start
with friendly gesture towards the patient and thereby introduce herself. Studies are of the opinion
that nurses should call patients with their name (should be done in a culturally competent way) as
this helps in showing concern and helps in building trust and respect (Burke et al., 2016).
Secondly, nurses should actively listen to the patients and if needed, nurses should also restate

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what they have verbalized in order to ensure. The nurse should ensure that the patient gets
enough privacy while she is providing care to the patient. Effective communication should be
done to identify their basic needs and interventions are to be adopted accordingly (Marie et al.,
2016). Nurses should communicate in ways by which the cultural differences are respected and
professional boundaries are respected. These might include therapeutic touch like hand-holding,
a light hug while preferring no touching and others (Lewis et al., 2017). Rapport, trust, respect,
empathy and genuineness are the aspects that should be focused on by the nursing professionals
to ensure that an effective culture of therapeutic communication is ensured while treating the
patient.
Different types of therapeutic communication techniques can be embarked by the nurses.
These are using silence in an effective way, accepting the patients as they are and respecting
their choices, giving recognition to the patients, offering self to the patient, active listening,
seeking clarification and placing the event in time or sequence are some of the effective ways of
therapeutic communication (Bahrenman et al., 2016). Summarizing what the patient had said,
reflecting, focusing and confronting with them when required are effective ways by which
therapeutic communication needs to be carried out. Offering hope and humor is also one aspect
of therapeutic communication.
Case study:
During the time of placement, I was assigned to work with another novice nursing
professionals under one highly experienced facilitator. An old aboriginal patient aged 85 years
was admitted to the ward for his treatment of unmanaged diabetes, obesity issues, foot ulcer as
well as restricted ability to mobilize due to osteoarthritis. The facilitator advised us to initiate our