Be attentive of your own non-verbal cues

• Demonstrate attentiveness: eye contact, posture, position, movement, facial expression, timing, voice
• Patients rarely ask for verbal confirmation of non-verbal cues they pick up, and so often base their impressions primarily on non-verbal messages.

Being able to decode non-verbal cues is essential to understanding your patient’s feelings. Despite this importance, many sources of possible distortion/misunderstanding exist in reading non-verbal messages.

To successfully decode your patient’s non-verbal messages:

1. Observe carefully:
   • Body language, speech, facial expression, affect, etc.
2. Verify your perceptions verbally with the patient:
   • Check out and acknowledge non-verbal cues
   • Verify your assumptions
     • Encourages your patient to talk further
     • Avoids possible misinterpretation

Eye contact, facial expression

• Posture, position, movement
• Vocal cues: rate, volume, intonation

Exercise: What would particularly poor non-verbal communication in the clinical setting look like? Role play this if possible.

Silverman, J., Kurtz, S., & Draper, J. (2013). Skills for Communicating with Patients (Thrid Edit). London: Radcliffe Publishing.