TCT 2

• Therapeutic Communication Techniques

  • Using Silence
  • Providing general leads
  • Being specific and tentative
  • Using open-ended question
  • Using touch
  • Restating or paraphrasing
  • Seeking clarification
  • Perception checking or seeking consensual validation
  • Offering self
  • Giving information
  • Acknowledging
  • Clarifying time or sequence
  • Presenting reality
  • Focusing
  • Reflecting
  • Summarizing and Planning
• Using Silence

  Accepting pauses or silence that may extend for several seconds or minute without interjecting any verbal response
• Providing general leads

  Using statement or questions that (a) encourage the client to verbalize (b) choose a topic of conservation; and (c) facilitate continued verbalization
• Being specific and tentative

  Making that are specific rather than general, and tentative rather than absolute
• Using open-ended question


  Asking broad question that lead or invite the client to explore (elaborate, clarify, describe compare, or illustrate) thoughts or feelings
• Using touch


  Providing appropriate forms of touch to reinforce caring feelings
• Restating or paraphrasing

  Actively listening for the client's basic message and then repeating those thoughts and or feeling in similar word
• Seeking clarification


  A method of making the client's broad overall meaning of the message more understandable
• Perception checking or seeking consensual validation

  A method similar to clarifying that verifies the meaning of specific words rather than the over all meaning of message
• Offering self

  Suggesting one's presence, interest, or wish to understand the client without making any demands
• Giving information

  Providing, in a simple and direct manner, specific factual; information the client may or may not request
• Acknowledging

  Giving recognition, in a nonjudgmental way, of a change in behavior, an effort the client has made, or contribution to a communication
• Clarifying time or sequence

  Helping the client clarify an event, situation, or happening in relationship to time
• Presenting reality


  Helping the client to differentiate the real from the unreal
• Focusing


  Helping the client expand on and develop a topic of importance
• Reflecting


  Directing ideas, feelings, question, or content back to clients to enable them to explore their own ideas and feelings about a situation
• Summarizing and Planning

  Stating the main points of a discussion to clarify the relevant points discussed
• Barriers of Therapeutic Communication

  • Stereotyping
  • Agreeing and disagreeing
  • Being defensive
  • Challenging
  • Probing
  • Testing
  • Rejecting
  • Changing topics and subject
  • Unwarranted reassurance
  • Passing judgment
  • Giving common advice
• Stereotyping


  Offering generalized and oversimplified beliefs about groups of people that are based on experience categories clients and negate their uniqueness as individuals
• Agreeing and disagreeing

  Implying that the client is either right or wrong and that the nurse is in a position to judge this
• Being defensive


  Attempting to protect a person or health care services from negative comments
• Challenging


  Giving a response that makes client prove the statement or point of view
• Probing

  Asking for information chiefly out of curiosity rather than with the intent to assist the client
• Testing


  Asking question that make the client admit to something
• Rejecting


  Refusing to discuss certain topics with the client
• Changing topics and subject

  Directing the communication into areas of self-interest rather than considering the clients concerns
• Unwarranted reassurance


  Using clichés or comforting statements of advices a means to reassure the client
• Passing judgment

  Giving opinions and approving of disapproving responses, moralizing, or implying one's own values
• Giving common advice

  Telling the client what to do, denying the clients right to be an equal partner