Techniques

Examples from Video

Physical Environment:  Ensure that the physical environment of your office, waiting room, or other areas of your organization reflect your clientele.  Do the pictures on your wall or the magazines in the lobby match the diversity of your patient/clients?

Poster behind Celia in examination room.

Rapport Building:   Involves developing trust through verbal and non-verbal means.  Verbal rapport building can include the use of compliments, expressions of caring (how would you feel most comfortable?) self-disclosure and humor.  Non-verbal rapport building can include touch, eye contact, nodding, and smiling.

Nurse Elaine looks at Celia even though Celia does not make eye contact with her during the assessment.

Elaine patted Celia’s arm when they were discussing the medical problems her child faced.

Open-Ended Questions:  Are questions that allow the patient / client to tell his/her story.  Open-ended questions cannot be answered by a yes or no.

When Elaine asks: “What was different this time with this pregnancy?”

Reflective Listening:  Is a technique that lets the patient/client know that the health care provider is listening to what he/she is saying.  This technique is often referred to as paraphrasing and/or reflective or active listening.

When Elaine responds with: “This pregnancy wasn’t planned.”

Responding Nonjudgmentally:  Requires the health care provider to continually assess their own values and beliefs so that they do not interfere with their work with patient/client.

When Elaine said: “How are you feeling now?  Has anything changed?” in response to Celia’s feelings about her pregnancy.

When she said “I notice you left ‘marital status’ blank on your intake form.”

Empowerment/Strength Based Comments:  Is a technique that identifies and compliments strengths in order to help an individual take control of a situation.  When responding to the patient/client communication, it is helpful to notice the strengths you can identify, not just the problems and concerns.

When Elaine said: “I noticed you had prenatal care for your other pregnancies.”

Techniques

Examples from Video

Empathy:  Involves listening respectfully to the patient/client’s concerns and relating to the patient/client’s situation.

When Elaine said “This must be difficult.” in response to Celia talking about her husband wanting her to get an abortion.

When Joni said: “I know you’re upset.  I’m sure the information you got today is overwhelming, and you’ll probably have a lot of questions.”

Identifying Feelings:  Occurs when the health care professional puts words to the emotions that are being expressed and then checks with the patient/client to make sure that his/her interpretation is correct.

When Elaine said “So you were not happy about this pregnancy.”

Defusing Anger:  Can be accomplished by several techniques including listening for and responding to the angry person’s fear, identifying and responding to the issues underlying the person’s anger and shifting the angry person’s perspective.

While anger was not expressed directly, there appeared to be some anxiety present.  Elaine was able to respond to that anxiety by providing information and by maintaining a non-judgemental approach. 

Summarizing:  Is a technique in which the health care provider highlights key points of the conversation with the patient/client and checks back to make sure that his/her interpretation is correct.

Social worker summarized the options she had presented and spoke of the next step.