Therapeutic Active Listening Skills

Communication is a collaborative means of transferring information between two or more people. It is very important for healthcare providers to communicate effectively and efficiently with their clients and also possess an active listening skill because “To relate therapeutically with a patient, it is necessary for the nurse to understand his or her role and its relationship to the patient’s illness” (Diefenbeck, 2012). Knowing this helps to decrease anxiety of the patient and also will help the patient to freely communicate his or her concerns to the healthcare provider and also will adhere to the health recommendations of the providers. The focus of this paper is to assess and analyze the type of therapeutic communicating skills that were
According to Diefenbeck (2012), Active listening is to be attentive to what the client is saying both verbally and nonverbally. It also creates an atmosphere for the nurse to communicate acceptance and respect for the client and trust is enhanced. From my observation, active listening is not only being attentive to what the client is saying either verbally or non-verbally, it also includes your sitting position (i.e. facing the client), eye contact and being
Are you having any concerns about getting your lab work drawn?” this response by the HCP acknowledges the clients emotional cues and offers the client an opportunity to continue to express his concerns. Offering general lead technique according to Townsend (2014) is offering the client the encouragement to continue. The HCP also used reflecting by asking, “What I am hearing you say is that you are afraid there will be some contamination in the blood drawn?” affords opportunity for the patient to elaborate. This therapeutic approach used by the HCP was providing patient the opportunity to engage in the procedure and thereby decreasing his growing anxiety. From my observation, the HCP used requesting an explanation technique defined as the act of asking clients to provide reason for their thought, feelings, behavior etc. when the HCP asked the client “why he was scared of having his blood drawn”. And asking “why” a client did something or feels a certain way can be very intimidating, and implies that the client must defend his or her behavior or