Therapeutic Communication in Nursing

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Communication is important for provision of appropriate care by nurses. Over the past few years, media reports have suggested that nurses lacked compassion. I was placed at a rehabilitation hostel for people with mental health problems and I noticed that some junior nurses did not have assertive skills to deal with ‘difficult’ patients. I had an opportunity to witness a new admission and was surprised at how some nurses were only concerned about patients’ medical symptoms without listening to underlying causes of their illnesses. Consequently, I decided to focus my discussion on these three communication skills; compassion, assertiveness and listening skills. When people are in distress, they usually receive pity, compassion or empathy. Compassion is very different from the rest because it has a spiritual or emotional connotation and Von Dietze and Orb ( 2000) say it should not only be a response to a crisis or suffering but a moral choice and is based on rational thought and evaluation, not on sentiment alone. It is a profound feeling that can be demonstrated by treating other in a way that one would like to be treated. The oxford dictionary defines compassion as sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others. Compassion is spontaneous and can be offered in a variety of ways. According to Gyatso ( 2011), everyone should feel equal for all living beings without exception because there is no single being who is not a suitable object of compassion. There is need to employ positive culture, have a conscience and realise that nurses have a sense of duty towards clients as a way of demonstrating compassion. Self-exploration and a great deal of a variety of experiences are paramount to acting in a compassionate way. It requires coming to terms with one’s own limitations as well as being in touch with the inner self. One needs to explore and

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