Therapeutic communication is the foundation of any successful interview with an individual suffering with mental illness. With this case, therapeutic communication would help to potentially get down to the root of the client’s issues and figure out why he is feeling the way that he is. During assessment, therapeutic communication helped to gain as much information as possible. The individuals who performed the assessment did a great job with asking open ended questions. Throughout each interview, the student’s responses got more therapeutic over time. Rather than not giving much of a response when a client answered a question, they responded by showing acknowledgement and understanding of what they are going through. This tended to create the trusting patient-nurse relationship. Additionally, frequent follow questions to an unclear response helped to gain a significant amount of information from this client. Throughout the assessment, the students used great therapeutic communication to develop rapport with the patient and to get as much information out of the conversation as possible. Using therapeutic communication as an intervention itself was essential during the interview with Mr. Riley. His main issue is the guilt that he is experiencing around his symptoms of depression. Therapeutic communication is important because it will help to allow the patient to be heard. Specifically, in Mr. Riley’s case, he expressed how he felt a isolated. In that moment, the students acted as support system but justifying the reasons for some of his symptoms and giving recommendations on how to better himself. Having someone actively listen to how the patient is feeling is important in recovery because it allows them to feel heard.

The students in this interview had multiple instances where they used therapeutic communication. Specifically, when Mr. Riley expressed his feelings of guilt, one of the student responded with something along the lines of him not being alone with that guilt and that it is a common symptom of depression. They asked about what could be triggering the guilt and gave him ways to help with it. The students used open ended questions such as, “What would a normal day look like? What do you mean getting back to normal? Tell me more about how it makes you feel.” Multiple times, the students would used interpretations and reflecting statement. This technique was used specifically when the student restated and summarized the patient’s feelings of guilt. She began the restating with, “From what your saying it seems…” Overall, this group did a great job with therapeutic communication throughout their interview and it got better as the interview went on.