OVERVIEWThis essay will discuss a clinical interaction involving a service user and myself, a student nurse, in terms of the principles of therapeutic engagement. It will highlight key issues within the interaction that affected the outcome of the situation and, by using a reflective model, will analyse the engagement process.
INTRODUCTION OF THE SERVICE USERIn order to respect the service user's confidentiality in concordance with the Nursing & Midwifery Council (2004) code of professional conduct - point 5.1, the author shall refer to her as Ms X throughout this essay.
Ms X is a 36 year old, single, English white female. Her diagnosis is paranoid schizoaffective disorder (American Psychiatric Association, 2000), but she has little insight into her condition. Ms X is currently prescribed a depot injection of clopixol 40mg, to be administered once every two weeks, (Dunitz, 2001). She has four children, all of which have been taken into care due to her inability to cope, although she adamantly denies this claim.
Published by the American Psychiatric Association,...
American Psychiatric Association
English: This 2006 image depicted an adolescent fe...Her social support network consists of her mother and three close female friends.
Ms X is currently living in temporary accommodation due to her property being uninhabitable due to fire damage. She has had three admissions to an acute ward over the past two years. Ms X has a history of illicit drug use and this has been a prodrome to all three of her admissions (Birchwood, Spencer & McGovern, 2000), causing her to become paranoid, to display unusual behaviour such as writing numerous letters of complaint to famous people and extreme anxiety symptoms such as pacing, aggressive outbursts and tense posture.
CONTEXT OF CLINICAL INTERACTIONPrior to the interaction about to be discussed, the author had previously met Ms X during her second admission on an acute ward, approximately a year ago. During this period the author...