Interpersonal Communication

Peter Drucker once stated that, “The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn’t said.” This statement can be considerably true in every type of communication. The three types of communication being focused on are intrapersonal, interpersonal, and group (small-group, organizational) communication, and how they differ from therapeutic communication along with what therapeutic communication entails (Taylor, 2015). Intrapersonal communication is reflection and conversation with one’s self, interpersonal communication is when two or more individuals get together to achieve a common goal, and group communication can be broken up into small-group (two or more nurses working together to achieve a goal) and organizational (when nurses

This is important in the fact that nurses have to communicate in precise detail to every one of their fellow employees to achieve a safe and quality environment for not only each other, yet also for every patient that is entrusted in their care. When there is a breakdown in communication a patient can suffer a great deal, such as a patient that has a breakdown of skin integrity and communication is delayed or not given to the nurse assigned to the patient, or when a patient is transferred to another facility and the intake only reads the record summary, while disregarding the nurse’s notes that impelled the patient was at risk for bed pressure ulcers could lead to additional complications for the patient (Anthony, 2010). The patient developing this unnecessary ulcer was due to a fact of communication breakdown. Communication breakdowns can occur when a nurse dehumanizes a patient instead of recognizing them as truly important in the health care process, when a nurse fails to listen to a patient verbal or nonverbal willingness to talk or be heard, thus missing an actual communication opportunity that will assist in a quality rapport between the patient and the nurse, nontherapeutic communication such as clichés, using only yes or no questions, avoid questions that ask why, how, probe for information, or leading because they can be perceived as threatening (Taylor, 2015). Comments that give advice or seem to pass judgement should also be avoided since these can also trigger the patient to become defensive (Taylor,