How to Coach Yourself and Others Coaching and Counseling in Difficult Circumstances | Page 70

This book is in B&W, not color - Print page in Grayscale for Correct view! Here and now as topic (4/28) “I’m thinking of inpatient wards where, it’s a pretty awful environment, I think, and what you see around you is quite crazy in itself, and then to have somebody who’s there, feeling very withdrawn and looking at this scene that they’re facing and that’s, it’s quite an absurd scene area, and they are seeing people who are quite unwell, and who are saying really odd things, and yet we’re trying to help make that person better and to be more normal, so to speak, and so I guess just noting what you see. And I guess, in a way it’s saying, well yes it’s, this experience, it is very odd. It’s very strange and it’s frightening.” Somewhat related to focusing on the person rather than the symptoms, was assisting the patient to focus on their here and now experience, or using the ‘here and now’ as a topic in its own right. Here, once again, props could be used, such as ‘books, the television, what is going on in the room’, ‘paintings’ on the ward walls, ‘factual things’ such as sounds and colours on the ward, rather than abstract, theoretical or symptom based conversation. This method could be adopted in order to help with orientation to time (time of day, day of the week, month or season of the year), place (X hospital, N ward), or person (nurse so and so, the ward cleaner, hospital porters, other patients, or celebrities, politicians etc in the news). Joint activity (22/28) “Sometimes I might start off doing something myself. And then, then I’d invite the person to join me if it was appropriate, it may not be appropriate at that time, it may be appropriate at another time. But I might start off by doing something just to, so that, that person, I suppose, has the time just to work through their distress and if the person is then able to come and do something with me, that’s good.” Another much spoken about way to get socially engaged with patients was frequently recommended: joining what they are doing, or initiating something and asking them to join in. Playing games for example, such as ‘scrabble’, ‘pool’, ‘card games’, and ‘playstation’; or being with them and assisting whilst they care for themselves – having a shower or a bath, hair care, shaving, doing their laundry, making a phone call, all provided opportunities for social interaction and relationship building, both verbally and nonverbally. Two specific activities were mentioned a great deal, so obviously had proved useful to many nurses: 1. ‘Going for a stroll, just going to the shop’, or if appropriate to the individual patient, walking up and down the ward with them. getting away from the environment of the ward, where possible, was seen as beneficial and aided communication. 2. Eating meals with the patient, or more commonly a possibility, making or assisting them to make a snack or a drink. A more common standby from the past, smoking a cigarette with the patient, was only mentioned once in the interviews. “The writing, writing things down, because I've found that that slows the thinking down. Painting, drawing, sensory things as well just like taking someone into the garden, gardening, just doing something, actually something, I think the thing about that is something that actually connects them to something in the environment, something very, very concrete and something that's actually slowing the thought processes down.” Humour (10/28) “I think a bit of humour goes a long way as well. Even if you’re feeling really down you can still, peoples’ humour seems to be retained somehow and just sharing a bit of a laugh about what’s happening and, just can be a bit of lightening of the load for people and it can build trust as well because I think, if you can laugh with somebody you, it feels a bit more candid. You don’t feel like you’re necessarily just speaking jargon and you’re just representative of the system but that you’re, if you laugh together, you’re human to human rather than, type of staff member to patient, in a way.” For [email protected] Property of Bookemon, do NOT distribute 72