Health and Social care unit 2 Communication A03

University Degree Subjects allied to Medicine

A03
Theories relating to communication

The above diagram is the Conversation Sandwich. It explains the process of how a conversation is started.
A conversation is usually started off with a greeting such as, “Hello” and it usually follows on with the person asking the other person how they are.
Conversations always have a beginning, middle and end. For a conversation to be started the right sort of atmosphere has to have been created when the other person has been created. A conversation is ended by saying “Good bye, or see you soon.”

When communicating with other people we automatically start to express our own thoughts and opinions and we start to understand the other person’s expressions and conversation.

This is called the communication cycle:
The above diagram demonstrated that when we are communicating with other people we both become involved in a process of expressing our own thoughts and opinions; we start to interpret the other person’s thoughts and understand their way of communicating.

Communication is a two way process in which each person attempts to understand one another. The communication cycle requires you to have advanced listening skills and the ability to check the other persons understanding once they have responded; this is demonstrated in the diagram below.

The process of interpretation and expression:

1. Expressing our thoughts.

2. Watching the other person’s non verbal response and body language.

3. Interpreting the other person’s body language and trying to work out what he or she is thinking.

4. Listening to his or her response to what we have said.

5. Trying to make sense of his or her response

6. Expressing new ideas to try and clarify our ideas.

Listening is not like hearing, when listening to someone you have to listen carefully to what they are saying, so listen to their words then you have to think about what they mean, and then what to say in reply to the person you are speaking to. This is called active listening.

Skilled active listening involves:

You are looking interested and you are ready and prepared to listen.
Hear what the person is saying to you.
Remembering what has just been said to you.
Checking and understanding what the person has just said.

Whilst we are thinking what the other person is saying, our non verbal communication is still observed by the other person whom you are speaking to.

People find it a lot easier to understand someone else who is similar to us. Checking to see whether we understand what the other person is saying is done by asking them questions, and hearing their response. Another way which can be done to see whether we do understand is a method called, “Paraphrasing.” This is where we rephrase, what the other person has said and we repeat this back to the other person.

Whilst you are being spoken to and the other person is talking about their personal life or someone else’s you automatically start to build up a mental image/judgement of that person on what we are being told.

Our listening skills involve us having to check these mental pictures to see whether or not these ideas are correct. It can be very difficult to remember these ideas as accurate as when they were told, this is why we have to keep checking to see if these ideas are accurate as these ideas will continue to develop.

Good listening involves us thinking about what we are hearing and to keep checking our understanding as the conversation goes a lot, to make sure this information is correct before repeating it back to someone else, for e.g. if you were in a new job in a care setting, if the boss of the residential home is explaining to you what you should be expecting on a daily routine, keep asking questions to check that you understand. A good way to do this is called, “reflection.” This is similar to paraphrasing as we are reflecting the other person’s words in ...

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Active listening is important and essential in a care working job. You yourself as the care user has to learn to be patient whilst listening in the care user as by not listening and just ignoring what they are saying could cause, frustration, loss of trust and could even make the care user feel guilty as they may think their illness (or for any reason why they are in a care setting) may be confusing themselves and they are not making sense to the care worker.

SOLER principles:

Egan’s five solar principles are based on the culture of North America.

(Table from, AS level for OCR Health and Social Care, Neil Moonie, Heinemann)

The table above was proposed by Egan as guidelines to help care workers learn how to look like a caring person.

Care workers can you use these guidelines, to help the care user feel more comfortable, by the care worker being a caring person, and have an open posture shows the care user you are listening to them, and you are involved in the conversation as for example, if you have you legs or arms crossed whilst speaking to a care user suggest you either don’t want to listen to them, or you have no interest with what the person is saying, where as if you are sitting in front of them, both at the same level, constantly giving eye contact and an open posture helps the care user feel more comfortable with what they are talking about, and this helps build a relationship between one another.

Tuckman devised a theory of group formation called, “Tuckmans sequential theory.”

Tuckman did fifty studies and came up with the conclusion that groups go through a process which involves four stages, forming, storming, norming and performing. Tuckman and Jensen then came together with a fifth stage called; adjourning this fifth stage was added to show the ending of the group.

(Table from, AS level for OCR Health and Social Care, Neil Moonie, Heinemann)

Tuckmans sequential theory in my opinion is the most useful and effective theory in group formations, as it goes into a lot of depth in the stages of the groups and this would become useful in a care setting.

With these stages care workers have more of a chance of helping people bond in a care setting and also they can use these stages to their advantage to help develop a positive atmosphere in the setting as it would help them develop a relationship with the care user and help them feel more comfortable for example in a residential home, a new care user comes the care worker can help the care user feel more comfortable by following this process they could do this by doing an activity with a group of care users already in the residential home this could involve for example, a group of 6 sitting in a circle introducing themselves to the new care user, and then for the care worker to give them a task to do, like a puzzle to complete in a certain amount of time, and with the care worker monitoring this then can help encourage the completion of the group formation process.

After Tuchman’s theory had been seen by other theorists Burnard 1996 backed Tuckmans theory up but Burnard’s group dynamics is showing the importance of the group formation process, but is also showing what is happening throughout this process when groups come together.

With Burnards group dynamics, care workers are more able to see where problems will arise and have more of a chance of calming the group down or preventing these problems from happening. With these detailed explanations care workers can again use it to their advantage for a group to run successfully.

(Table from, AS level for OCR Health and Social Care, Neil Moonie, Heinemann)

Thompson’s theory of defensives versus supportive communication shows a range of issues of how people may be feeling when they are being “picked on” or supported with in a group. With this theory, care workers can refer back to this if a care user gets into a situation where they feel vulnerable etc.

(Table from, AS level for OCR Health and Social Care, Neil Moonie, Heinemann)