Communication Critique and Action Plan

PHYT5007- Communication critique and action plan

Throughout this reflection, I will apply the DEAL model.

This interview involved me to communicate and build rapport with an individual unknown to me. I had to find someone with three opposite points of intersectionality to me, gain consent from them, and perform an interview to get to know them and explore any health issues they may have and how this impacts their life.

The strategy I used to find my interviewee was to post on my local Facebook page to see if anyone would be interested in completing an interview; I had my individual reach out to me. We then organised to meet at a public café to complete the interview.

My interviewee said they didn’t want their name or face to be used due to his job as a prison officer. Aside from this, he was very comfortable talking to me about his work, social life, and health. We discussed these components of his life in more detail so that I could connect with him more deeply and learn more about him.

Throughout the interview, I was able to connect and build rapport well with the individual in a professional way. I asked him about different aspects of his life, such as his living situation, work life, hobbies, and interests; through these questions, I could gauge the best way to connect and build rapport with him. I quickly learnt that he was a very relaxed type of person who was open to most of the questions I asked when he started talking about his hobbies of camping (7:10-9:20); I was able to connect with him as this is also one of my hobbies, we talked about this for a little while. Connecting with the interviewee like this allowed him to feel more comfortable with me and learn a little about the person I am.

My use of active listening towards the interviewee was done well. I maintained eye contact with him the entire way through the interview and monitored his body language to ensure he didn't seem uncomfortable with the questions I was asking him. I also didn't let my personal beliefs or emotions come into the interview and was attentive to what he said.

When exploring the interviewee's health condition of his shoulder injury, I integrated the ICF framework into the interview quite seamlessly (12:14-14:15). When exploring the participation aspect, where I asked him how the injury impacted his work, this led nicely to the activity aspect, I asked him what sort of things his injury limited him to. The activity aspect also allowed me to tie in any personal factors by asking about his mental health throughout the injury. I ended by asking about the body functions and structure and if he has any ongoing issues with this injury. I didn't dive too much into the environmental factors, but I could have asked him about what daily tasks his injury impacted.

One thing I need to improve is laughing a little after asking some questions (0:30-0:50), which gives off the impression that I’m nervous and could make the individual uncomfortable. I could work on structuring the interview more like a conversation rather than just asking questions. I felt I did this nicely for parts of the interview, but in other parts, it was as though I was asking him question after question. I also didn't show as much empathy as I thought I did when I was doing the interview, which could have made it difficult for the interviewee to express himself.

I learnt that having a strong therapeutic alliance with the client is important in making them feel heard and comfortable. It is well known that empathy, genuineness, and alliance are all fundamental parts of a therapeutic relationship1. Multiple studies have been conducted, and all of them have found that empathy plays an important role in the therapeutic alliance between the therapist and the client, and this allows the client to share more about themselves and for the therapist to help more2. It has also been shown that the way that questions are asked plays a role in therapeutic alliance; declarative questions were shown to enhance therapeutic alliance as it is believed that clients felt they had a better mutual understanding with the therapist3. Knowing that empathy and question type play an important role in the therapeutic alliance, I will consciously integrate these into future patient interviews.

Link for Navigating Future Communication:
https://www.canva.com/design/DAGCvcRtmyE/2V4835ciWExzAo9f4WTFlg/view?utm_content=DAGCvcRtmyE&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link&utm_source=editor

References:
1. Nienhuis JB, Owen J, Valentine JC, Winkeljohn Black S, Halford TC, Parazak SE, et al. Therapeutic alliance, empathy, and genuineness in individual adult psychotherapy: A meta-analytic review. Psychotherapy Research. 2016 Jul 7;28(4):593–605. doi:10.1080/10503307.2016.1204023
2. Feller CP, R RC. The importance of empathy in the therapeutic alliance. Journal of Humanistic Counseling, Education and Development 2003 Spring;42(1):53-61.
3. Thompson L, Howes C, McCabe R. Effect of questions used by psychiatrists on therapeutic alliance and adherence. British Journal of Psychiatry. 2016 Jul;209(1):40–7. doi:10.1192/bjp.bp.114.151910