Therapeutic Relationships Are Essential Towards The Establishment Of Success

Many individuals enter the healthcare profession because they want to help others achieve their greatest overall health and well-being. This may include achieving the fullness of physical, mental, emotional, social, and spiritual well-being. As a nurse or nursing student, one needs to have effective communication skills to help their clients. Even though nursing has a wide variety of different categories to work in, effective communication is essential for the profession. In addition, when working in a clinical setting, the relationship a nurse establishes with their clients is important. One significant nursing theorist who utilized the importance of relationships, especially the interpersonal processes and therapeutic relationship that develops between the nurse and client was, Hildegard Peplau (Forchuk, 1993). Throughout this paper, I will introduce and describe Peplau’s Theory of Interpersonal Relations, explain what this theory means to me as a nursing student, and how I can apply it into my future practice.

There are many ways of forming a relationship and gaining the trust and respect of the patient and I had to work out the different things that make a good therapeutic relationship. According to Hinchliff et al (2003) there are a number of important elements that make a good therapeutic relationship, but it is important to make clear that a therapeutic relationship is a formal relationship between a medical professional and patient. The Nursing and Midwifery Council (2008) maintains that at all times nursing staff must maintain appropriate professional boundaries in the relationships they have with patients and clients.

Therapeutic relationship improves the care of a patient. It is a sense of trust and a mutual understanding of a nurse and a patient to build the relationship. The purpose of the therapeutic relationship is to increase the patient’s ability to function. Besides, therapeutic relationship improves the patient’s self esteem. However, nurses also balancing of the therapeutic relationship and maintenance of the professional boundary.

This theory describes the different phases that a nurse-client relationship goes through. The phases that my patient and I will most likely be working in are the orientation and the identification phases because our relationship will be new. Our interaction will focus on building a mutual trust and understanding, as well as answer basic questions as to why my patient is here and things that she has been struggling with. Depending on how long my patient has been in the program, she may be open to exploring more of her feelings and sharing more about herself with me. Focusing on developing a good nurse-client relationship will help me during my interaction with my patient and will help me understand her needs better.

Creating a safe environment, promoting trusting nurse-patient relationship, and increasing patient’s quality of life are result of implementing this theory in practice. Even though creating a change in nursing practice might be challenging, but it is doable by identifying the goal, pathway to reach the goal, education, trainings, and using evidence based practice. The main point of creating a therapeutic communication is to build a trusting nurse-patient relationship, decreasing nurse and patient’s anxiety level, increasing the level of care and patient’s quality of life. (Jasmine,

One of the expected outcomes by the application of this theory would be “linking client-nurse interactive phenomena with client outcomes” (Byrd, 2006, p. 271). During this research Dr

The building of a positive relationship is described as showing warmth, respect and empathy however to provide effective communication between nurse and patient the nurse needs to be aware of and identify the patient’s physical, social and psychological barriers. A nurse can use these tools to build trust, mutual respect and confidence with the patient as these are needed for

A nurse-patient relationship is the basic requirements in all practice settings. Its usage is to manage communication between an organization and a public while maintaining boundaries in the therapeutic relationship. Based on Peplau’s interpersonal theory, communication takes place in a nurse-client relationship where therapeutic process occurs involving complex factors such as environment, attitudes, practices, and beliefs in the dominant culture (seu.edu, 2015). The actions of each person in a nurse-patient relationship is measured on the collaboration of their thoughts, feelings, and experiences. Nurse’s work to attain, maintain, and restore the patient’s health until patient have fulfilled the health care needs. Patient must be guided and provided a well-respected environment until a better health and specific needs are fully considered in the relationship. In this kind of setting, nurse’s must create relationship with patients by communicating receptivity, assimilating the concepts of empathy, trust, genuineness, respect, and confidentiality into their interactions.

The therapeutic relationship enables the nurse to express their compassion and knowledge of the patient’s individual experiences to humanise the healthcare experience. In the majority of nursing situations, this is the type of relationship formed between the nurse and patient (Stein-Parbury, 2009). The main characteristics of the therapeutic relationship are that they are a professional relationship instead of being social, have professional boundaries in addition to differing in the level of involvement for each relationship (Stein-Parbury, 2009).

It has been suggested that implications of therapeutic communication techniques are beneficial for nursing students as it improves the understanding with the client and reduces the stress and barriers involved in the clinical procedures (Rosenberg & Gallo-Silver, 2011). Many of such barriers are associated with understanding the client and building an effective therapeutic relationship can abolish those (Berman et al., 2014). This is further clarified by the fact that nurses spend significant amount of time with the clients and coordinate their care in liaison with other health professionals.

Over the course of the term we have looked at basic aspects of counselling and interpersonal skills, how we understand and relate to them as well as how we have experienced them within our counselling triads. Within the Humanistic schools of theory, we have looked at Person-Centred Counselling, Transactional Analysis and Gestalt, under the heading ‘Integrative learning’. This has allowed me to identify my own preferences and strengths in relation to each theory and apply them in learning triads. I shall also be focussing on interpersonal skills of a more generic nature, and how they can be applied to ease, encourage and explain interactions. Repeatedly this term I have found myself fascinated with the importance of the ‘Therapeutic

Solidarity is generally considered as a communicative approach to improve personal relationships. Individuals may express their feelings, attitude, opinions or belief which are rather indicative of an orientation towards solidarity (Koester, 2006). The core intention of individuals expressing solidarity is mutuality. The individuals convey their solidarity in different ways, which include expressing approval, showing interest, sympathy or claiming common grounds (Koester, 2006). In health care context, solidarity approaches in conversations were used the health professionals to attain various aims. For instance, it is used as a simple way for a medical professional to find out more about the

The focus on this relationship to the exclusion of all other relationships allows for the nurse and the client to work together as partners in problem solving (Forchuk, 1993). The model supports and encourages empowerment of the patient by assisting and supporting the client to become accountable for their well being. In addition, the focus on the partnership of the nurse and the client and the emphasis on meeting the identified needs of the client, make the model ideal for short-term crisis intervention (George, 1995). The model also focuses on health promotion and wellness, not just the treatment of the ill. Most importantly, Peplau stresses that both patient and nurse can mature from the therapeutic interaction as they both meet in a creative relationship where there is a continuing sense of mutuality and togetherness. However, the model exhibits several weaknesses. Since the focus of the model is on the nurse-client relationship, the client would be required to develop this relationship with every nurse he/she comes in contact with, which would be numerous. This could make a client's stay in a facility care very stressful as each nurse would come with their own unique personality, views and perspectives. It would require a high degree of adaptation

When discussing an effective nurse-client relationship many factors are incorprated in the establishment of this relationship among these factors are positve regard,trust and interpersonal skills.

The nurse-patient relationship (NPR) is considered the foundation of nursing care, the context in which nurses practice. The NPR is an interpersonal process that develops over time between patients and nurses (Hagerty; Patusky, 2003). In addition, the elements of this process generally include a beginning or development of trust, middle or working phase, and an ending or termination phase within the context of caring, sharing, and goal orientation. This conceptualization is grounded in the work of Peplau (1952) and was subsequently expanded in the works of interactional nurse theorists such as King (1981), Paterson and Zderad (1988), and Travelbee (1971).