Key Term List By Module
Module 1 - Communication
Task Communication
Task communication involves the content of the message and includes the “tasks” of communication, such as instructing, diagnosing, encouraging, supporting.
Relational Communication
While the content level of a message is conveyed by the words themselves (task), the relational level generally is manifested by nonverbal communication.
Narrative Clinical Practice
To engage in narrative clinical practice, the clinician engages in active listening by focusing on gaps, ambiguities, and conflicting plots within the patient/family’s story. Narrative Clinical Practice consists of three communication techniques: deconstruction, externalization, and re-authoring.
Person-Centered Messages
Person-centered messages allow the clinician to recognize and acknowledge other’s feelings, elaborate on the explanation of the feelings, and help an individual gain a new perspective on feelings.
Module 2 - Orientation/Opportunity
Health Literacy
Health literacy is about receiving or acquiring information, understanding that information, and then using that information in decision making about health-related issues.
Voice of the Lifeworld
Words and phrases used by patients and families to describe feelings and the ways that illness affects their day-to-day life.
Communication Accommodation
Accommodating communication establishes that all people communicate in similar and dissimilar ways and that the way in which we understand the speech and behavior of another will determine what we think of the interaction. Accommodations ( also known as convergence) made to identify with another person’s similarities can decrease the dissimilarities. Divergence is when an individual adjusts their communication style to highlight differences, creating a barrier to communication.
Cultural Humility
Cultural humility asks health professionals to adopt a “clean slate and assess the patient regardless of their cultural orientation” in order to determine patient/family needs and preferences. This includes taking into consideration patient/family ethnic origin, religious belief, or personal attributes that may label them, as well as the power differential that exists between medical personnel and patient/caregivers.
Module 3 - Mindful Presence
Mindfulness
The term “mindfulness” originated in Buddhist philosophy and involves the recognition of relationships between our emotions and our physical and mental health. Mindfulness is a state of being attentive and aware.
I-It and I-Thou
In I-It relationships there is no dialogue, only monologue, as other people are treated as objects to be used and experienced. Mindful presence entails dialogue and the treatment of the other as THOU.
Module 4 – Family
Family Communication Climate
A family communication climate describes the communication pattern of a family. Over time, families develop communication patterns that are based on conversation and conformity orientations, providing informal rules and predictable patterns for the ways that family members interact with one another.
Conversation Orientation
Conversation patterns dictate appropriate topics for family discussion, the degree to which families spend time communicating, and whether or not the family engages in communal or individual decision-making.
Conformity Orientation
Conformity patterns inform the appropriate amount of time family members spend together, expected sharing of family resources, and obedience to parents.
Module 5 – Openings
Quality of Life Domains
The quality of life model consists of the spiritual, psychological, social, and physical well-being of the patient/family.
Communication Privacy Management
Individuals become owners of private information and have control of who, where, how, and if private information will be shared with others.
Privacy dilemma
When an individual has private information and must decide whether or not to reveal the private information to others. Information can be communicated vaguely or directly.
Boundary Turbulence
When private information is shared with others and the individual sharing the information is not sure that disclosure is appropriate.
Boundary Coordination
When private information is shared and the individual sharing the information has received permission to share the information with others.
Module 6 – Relating
Quest Narrative
When an individual interprets an experience by concluding and/or highlighting something useful, regardless if the experience is positive or negative.
Problematic Integration
To process uncertainty, individuals consider the probability of something occurring and evaluate whether the occurrence will be positive or negative. When there is high likelihood that something undesirable will happen, problematic integration occurs. In response, individuals react in one of four ways (divergence, ambiguity, ambivalence, or impossibility) making communication and decision-making difficult.
Module 7 – Team
Groupthink
Groupthink can occur when “deeply involved” cohesive group members engage in a mode of thinking that centers on unanimity over the motivation to rationally assess various courses of action. In these groups, the focus of groupwork is on group cohesion and group relations rather than decision-making; groupthink results in poor decision-making and/or lack of collaboration.