Importance of a Good Therapeutic Relationship: The Pledge

Original article

25 mai

Joshua Samuel RAJKUMAR, MPT, CSTP©[1], Kaviyarasu MANICKAM, BPT(c)[2] & Boobesh KRISHNAN, BPT(c)4

When an individual steps into the clinic with the need for help from us, rehabilitation professionals, what we offer changes not only the primary problem they are presenting with but also other secondary issues that may or may not have an influence on their primary problem at hand. Along with the physical health issues, the patient also brings psychological stressors like anxiety, fear, and related emotions. (1,2) These psychological stressors have also been shown to aggravate their presenting physical illnesses. If not addressed or minimised in the healthcare professionals’ approach to communicating with the patients, the treatment outcomes that depend on the patient’s behaviour may not be as expected. Many times, if there is an effective relationship between the patient and professional, what we term a "therapeutic relationship" (3-6), these changes have a significant positive impact on the recovery.

A healthy therapeutic relationship is thus crucial to the overall recovery in any rehabilitation process, be it orthopaedic, neurological, cardio-respiratory, sports, or other specialties, or even other rehabilitation fields like occupational therapy, speech therapy, and others. Understanding patients and their behaviours has been reported to increase positive treatment outcomes. This understanding comes with a good relationship between the patient and the therapist based on effective communication, trust, commitment, and respect for each other. Additional factors like understanding emotions, and the ability to empathise are also crucial for establishing a good therapeutic relationship. Professional compassion and empathy have been shown to improve patient satisfaction, reduce anxiety and stress, and strengthen the professional-patient relationship. (7-12)

In view of this, we were very impressed by Winckler M.'s 2023 article "The Chart" on Somatosens Pain Rehab 20(1), which described ten key statements from the patient to the professional taking up their therapy or treatment process. (13) Each of these ten key statements exposed the need for understanding the importance of a therapeutic relationship, as discussed above. Hence, we decided to translate this article in our native languages, starting with Tamil in the present article, which we believe can help educate the patients on the importance of establishing equality in the treatment process and, establish a stronger therapeutic relationship. The translation, re-translation and, proof-reading was done by two independent reviewers with the subject who also have the knowledge of this native language to make sure the original content is not changed.

There would be further translations of the statements into other indian languages to help spread these key statements across different populations in India and across the globe.

Acknowledgement

We thank Spicher CJ., for permitting us to translate the original article “The Chart” by Martin Winckler published in Somatosens Pain Rehab 2023. (13)

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