Therapeutic Comm Q 1
A patient with a diagnosis of major depression who has attempted suicide says to the nurse, “I should have died! I’ve always been a failure. Nothing ever goes right for me.” Which response demonstrates therapeutic communication?
A. "You have everything to live for."
B. "Why do you see yourself as a failure?"
C. "Feeling like this is all part of being depressed."
D. "You've been feeling like a failure for a while?"
Correct Answer: D. “You’ve been feeling like a failure for a while?”
Responding to the feelings expressed by a patient is an effective therapeutic communication technique. The correct option is an example of the use of restating. It’s frequently useful for nurses to summarize what patients have said after the fact. This demonstrates to patients that the nurse was listening and allows the nurse to document conversations. Ending a summary with a phrase like “Does that sound correct?” gives patients explicit permission to make corrections if they’re necessary.
Option A: Some people confuse empathizing with sympathizing. To establish a good nurse-patient relationship, the nurse should use empathy, not sympathy. Sympathy is defined as the feelings of concern or compassion one shows for another. By sympathizing, the nurse projects his or her own concerns to the client, thus, inhibiting the client’s expression of feelings.
Option B: This option blocks communication because it minimizes the patient’s experience and does not facilitate exploration of the patient’s expressed feelings. In addition, the use of the word “why” is nontherapeutic.
Option C: Internal validation is a non-therapeutic communication technique. This refers to making an assumption about the meaning of someone else’s behavior that is not validated by the other person (jumping into conclusion).