Therapeutic Communication

By VeriScorePrep Team · 5 min

Therapeutic communication builds trust and surfaces the patient's perspective. It is intentional and learnable — distinguish it from social conversation by its purpose and techniques.

Therapeutic techniques

• Active listening: full attention, eye contact, body language.
• Open-ended questions: "Tell me about..." invites exploration.
• Reflection: "It sounds like..." mirrors feeling or content.
• Clarification: "I'm not sure I follow. Can you say more?"
• Summarization: condense key points to validate and organize.
• Silence: a powerful therapeutic technique — allow space for the patient to gather thoughts.
• Restating: repeat the patient's main idea to confirm understanding.

Blocks to avoid

• Giving advice, dismissing or minimizing ("It could be worse"), false reassurance ("Everything will be fine"), changing the subject, why-questions (interrogating), value judgments, and social agreeableness that avoids the clinical point.

Cultural considerations

Eye contact norms, personal space, family involvement, and communication preferences vary. Adjust without stereotyping; ask the patient how they prefer to be addressed and how decisions are made in their family.