Therapeutic Communication: Skills, Awareness, and Literacy in Nursing

This essay analyzes therapeutic communication within healthcare, emphasizing its role in addressing patients' psychological and physical needs. It examines a scenario of ineffective communication, highlighting the lack of empathy and clarity. The report discusses necessary skills, approaches, and strategies for effective communication, including self-awareness and cultural awareness. It further explores the value of literacy skills in enhancing communication in nursing, specifically focusing on verbal fluency, effective listening, and reading comprehension. The essay concludes that communication, both written and verbal, is crucial in nursing and underscores the importance of therapeutic communication, self-awareness, cultural sensitivity, and literacy in healthcare settings.

ASSESSMENT 2 WRITTEN
PROJECT ESSAY

TABLE OF CONTENTS
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1

Communication refers to sharing, giving and receiving of the information that is
mandatory for the people. It is the therapeutic communication that is used in the health-care
organizations which conveys various aspects of psychological needs and physical needs of the
patients through making interactive relationships with nursing students (Cornell and Bucci,
2020). This report will analyse ineffective communication, discuss the skills required to support
a good communication and self and cultural awareness related to the therapeutic communication.
Lastly, the report will also showcase value of literacy skills for the purpose of effective
communication in the future of nursing practice.
An effective communication is said be the communication that gives a clarity to the
receiver and serves the purpose of conveying the message. Where an effective communication in
a place makes everything easy to understand, an ineffective communication leads to number of
conflicts, confusions, frustrations etc. Here, in this scenario, ineffective communication has been
analysed since the beginning. When the very first incident took place, where the younger son of
Shirley was upset on the decision made by the other three sons to shift Shirley to the facility. If
Alan was involved in the decision with the other three brothers, the situation would have been
completely different. In this situation, a lack of empathy, and clarity in the communication of the
brothers has been analysed.
Alan also took out the personal frustration on the nurse and became very impulsive on
seeing Shirley screaming in the facility, despite, understanding the condition and listening to the
nurse. Here after looking at the anger and the lack of impulse control, the nurse was not able to
communicate with Alan. And clearly a lack of therapeutic communication was observed.
An effective communication is a very important part of people daily lives. With a right
communication and right understanding, a lot of problems are already solved and its also helps a
person in maintaining good relationships with others (Bordelon And et.al., 2020). The mandatory
skills, approaches and strategies required for an effective communication includes; concentrating
on the issue and not on the people, valuing the personal self and actively listening during the
communication.

Self awareness is the knowledge about personal strength and areas that require growth.
Whereas, the cultural awareness is a knowledge of how people are going to interpret the words
said and how to communicate with them in a good, effective and empathetic way. Here in this
scenario, the nurse was aware of both the self and the cultural awareness. Having the knowledge
of what and how things will be perceived by the other people in the case, the nurse tried to
control the situation calmly. The communication carried at that time by the nurse was therapeutic
communication and being aware of both the self and the culture, the nurse tried to communicate
well with Alan. But due to the lack of both the awareness, Alan could not take the stand up with
the communication and so acted in a very negative way and asked the nurse to leave.
It is believed that communication is lined with the development of writing and reading
skills. A person has both, good reading and writing skills when a person is literate enough
((Arnold and Boggs, 2019)). Being a nurse, literacy can helped me in my communication skills
in various ways such as in speaking well for example; With the fluent verbal skills, I can speak
well with both my superiors and the patients (Kirca and Bademli, 2019). This will give me a
good confidence to speak nicely and empathetically with them in my future career. It will help
me in effective listening as Communication goes both ways of which, listening is more important
than speaking (Ramzan, S. and et.al., 2021). This provides the other person that the concerns are
being valued, which help me a lot in my nursing future. Lastly, it can also help me in good
understanding during the reading such as; Reading becomes an important part in the nursing
future, so yes, my literacy skills will definitely help me in good understanding as I will have to
read different cases and understand them on a regular basis.
From the above report, it has been concluded that communication plays a very important
role in daily lives of the people. This can be done through any means which might includes the
written as well as verbal format. The report had focus on the therapeutic communication that is
mandatory in the healthcare organizations (Gianfredi and et.al., 2018). This report also presented
the analysis of ineffective communication in a scenario, strategies, skills and approaches in order
to make a communication effective, importance of the therapeutic communication, a knowledge
of self awareness and cultural awareness and lastly, the significance of literacy skills in context
to the effective communication.

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Gianfredi, V. and et.al., 2018. Communication in health. Recenti progressi in medicina. 109(7).
pp.374-383.
Arnold, E.C. and Boggs, K.U., 2019. Interpersonal relationships e-book: professional
communication skills for nurses. Elsevier Health Sciences.
Cornell, W.F. and Bucci, W., 2020. Emotional communication and therapeutic change:
Understanding psychotherapy through multiple code theory. Routledge.
Kirca, N. and Bademli, K., 2019. Relationship between communication skills and care behaviors
of nurses. Perspectives in psychiatric care. 55(4). pp.624-631.
Bordelon, C.J. And et.al., 2020. Simulation to enhance communication skills in neonatal nursing
practice. Neonatal Network. 39(6). pp.347-355.
Ramzan, S. and et.al., 2021. THE IMPACT OF LISTENING HABIT ON ESL
LEARNERS’SPEAKING SKILL. PalArch's Journal of Archaeology of
Egypt/Egyptology. 18(10). pp.1175-1186.
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