Emotional Intelligence And Reflective Practice In Nursing

Emotional Intelligence And Reflective Practice In Nursing

Emotional Intelligence and reflective practice are integral components of building a therapeutic relationship in nursing

Emotional intelligence refers to the ability to perceive, control, and evaluate emotion. Reflective practice is exploring of one’s own experience and practices. This includes a person’s behaviour, thinking and all other related emotions. Therapeutic relationship can be defined as the care assistance and management given to clients according to the needs. According to the international council of nurses, “Nursing encompasses autonomous and collaborative care of individuals of all ages, families, groups and communities, sick or well and in all settings. Nursing includes the promotion, prevention of illness, and the care for ill, disabled and dying people. Advocacy, promotion of a safe environment, research, participation in shaping health policy and in patient and health system management, and education are also key nursing roles”. Thus, emotional intelligence and reflective practice has different facts that contribute in building a therapeutic relationship in nursing.

The capacity to express and control one’s own emotion is crucial and so important understanding, interpreting, and responding to others emotion. In nursing, perceiving, reasoning, understanding and managing emotion is important in building therapeutic relationship. There are four components of emotional intelligence that is perceive emotions, utilize this emotional perception to undertake various activities, understand emotional differences and achieve emotions to attain goals. The nursing profession demands that the nursing, in the process of care, has to interact with the patients, the medical group and the health care workers continuously. It is a difficult process that comprises nurse’s perception, understanding of the clients’ emotions and utilization of the perceptions to manage clients’ conditions towards the goal of effective patient care.

There are many challenges influencing nurse in building a therapeutic relationship such as gender, age and health situations of the clients. For example, it is challenging to interact to an old client whose hearing capability would be at a rationally low level or whose perception has lessened due to age. Nursing is a profession that is more about evidence base and therefore there is rationale for every practice which has to be explained to the client. These explanations need therapeutic relationship between the nurse and the client. Everyone has seen the individual that look either angry, strained, feeling ill or maybe sad. These emotions are interconnected to others not always by words, but by gesticulations and facial expressions. A nurse must always be alert of these expressions in the clients, for these expressions may be the only way that the nurse can tell if there is something else wrong which needs attention. Thus, therapeutic relationship can be effective between nurses and clients by using…

Emotional Intelligence And Reflective Practice In Nursing