Healthcare Communication and Therapeutic Relationships

Vocabulary flashcards reviewing core principles of healthcare communication, nonverbal cues, active listening, and therapeutic nurse-client dynamics based on lecture notes.

Verbal Communication

The use of spoken or written words to convey a message, including spoken word, written letters, e-mails, social media, documentation, poetry, and songs.

Paraverbal Communication

How words are spoken and non-linguistic vocalizations, including tone (such as sarcasm or anger), snorting, grunting, whistling, laughing, and guttural sounds.

Nonverbal Communication

Body language used during interaction, which accounts for $65{-}95\%$ of all communication and frequently reveals internal emotional states.

Personal Space Zones (Proxemics)

Spatial boundaries surrounding an individual: Intimate Space (less than $1.5\,\text{ft}$ / $0.45\,\text{m}$), Personal Space ($1.5\,\text{ft} - 4\,\text{ft}$ / $0.45\,\text{m} - 1.2\,\text{m}$), Social Space ($4\,\text{ft} - 12\,\text{ft}$ / $1.2\,\text{m} - 3.6\,\text{m}$), and Public Space ($12\,\text{ft} - 25\,\text{ft}$ / $3.6\,\text{m} - 7.6\,\text{m}$).

Posture (Closed vs. Open)

Body positioning that communicates nonverbal messages: closed posture can indicate hostility, unfriendliness, and anxiety, while open posture indicates friendliness, openness, and willingness.

Double Messages

Incongruent communication occurring when verbal and nonverbal messages conflict, often involving sarcasm or reflecting unclear communication.

Double-Bind Messages

Communication involving contradictory expectations that cannot both be satisfied, often used defensively to avoid direct expression of feelings or needs.

Paraphrasing

A communication facilitator where the clinician rephrases the client's message (e.g., 'this is what I heard you say') to confirm understanding.

Open-Ended Questions

Questions that encourage discussion and elicit longer responses, usually beginning with 'how,' 'why,' or 'what,' and serving as the primary questioning technique in professional interviews.

Closed-Ended Questions

Questions requiring specific, concise answers such as 'yes' or 'no,' typically starting with 'is,' 'are,' 'do,' or 'did,' used to narrow broad topics or gather medical history.

False Reassurance

A communication barrier involving statements like 'You'll be fine' or 'Everything will be okay,' which minimize and invalidate the patient's experience.

Active Listening

A conscious, intentional effort to hear, process, and understand both verbal and nonverbal signals from a speaker, while suspending judgment and providing feedback.

Therapeutic Relationship

A professional nurse-client relationship focused on the patient's growth, featuring mutually defined roles, set goals, established boundaries, confidentiality (with safety exceptions), and collaborative problem-solving.

Social Relationship

An informal interaction centered on friendship and socialization, where mutual needs are met, content is superficial, and advice may be freely given.

Self-Sharing

A technique used minimally at the beginning of a relationship to build rapport by sharing a commonality, while keeping the main focus on the client.

Transference

An unconscious process in which a client redirects feelings, attitudes, and expectations from significant past relationships (such as a parent) onto the nurse or therapist.

Countertransference

A phenomenon where a nurse displaces personal feelings from past relationships onto a patient, often in response to the patient's transference.

Empathy

Understanding and acknowledging the feelings and perspective of another person without taking on their emotional state, essential for therapeutic care.

Sympathy

Feeling compassion, sorrow, or concern for another ('feeling bad for someone'), which can lead to projection and hinder deeper exploration of feelings.

Telehealth / Teletherapy

The remote delivery of healthcare and mental health services using digital technology, expanding access for rural, overseas, or homebound populations.