Role Play and Reflective Essay 1

Assessment 2: Role play and reflective essay

Name:

Professor:

Course:

Institution:

Date:

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 Role Play and Reflective Essay 2

Introduction

Role plays have been proven to be one of the most effective ways of enhancing professional

skills and knowledge of students in any particular setting. Role plays allows an instructor to

make up scenarios that are similar to real-life cases, and students can use these scenarios to

practice the theory that they have learned. For instance, in the case of this paper, students

worked in pairs whereby one of them played the role of health practitioner and the other

student played the role of a patient. The skills gained from this exercise will help students to

identify their strengths and weaknesses so that they can be able to evaluate their proficiency

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in practical work.

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Scenario Description

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The scenario during the role play session was centered on a woman who has been suf-
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fering a psychological health disorder for 5 years. She is separated from her spouse who also

has custody over their children. This client has had several challenges in life ever since her
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condition began. She also lost her job as a social service employee. In the role play practice, I
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assumed the part of a psychological health counselor. We worked with the assumption that

the exercise occurred in a treatment center for individuals with mental health conditions.
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There was extensive use of verbal and non-verbal communication between the patient and I.

Analysis and Reflection of Working Skills

As the health care professional within the role play, I had to display exceptional pro-
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fessional working skills. To begin with, as the professional in this case, I had to make sure

that the patient understood every word I said so I used straightforward words. According to

Lane (2008), effective communication between a healthcare professional and a patient or

client should be professional and straightforward. Furthermore, I followed the documentation

guidelines and took down notes on all the relevant issues that we discussed. Moreover, I de-

cided to use open-ended questions to interview the client so that she could give out important

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 Role Play and Reflective Essay 3

details voluntarily rather than using close-ended questions (Koprowska, 2014:2). During the

initial stages of the interview, the client was withholding and seemed uncomfortable. I think

this is because she felt I would judge her so during the introduction I made sure I described

my job and the role I play to ensure that she gets better. Furthermore, before meeting a pa-

tient, a health care practitioner should find out the medical history of the patient so as to un-

derstand the opportunities and challenges that he or she might face. This is important as it

gives insights on the special areas of focus. Next, I assessed the feelings of the client so that I

could evaluate her emotional wellbeing. The client claimed that she always felt helpless about

her situation which made her to be depressed frequently. I told her that we would work on her

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condition using an action plan that we were going to formulate together.

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We also followed up on the Gibbs reflection cycle and proceeded to the next step

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which was analysis and evaluation (Van, 1999:2). In this stage, I assessed all the documents
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provided to identify the possible origins of the client’s condition. One of the issues that might
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have contributed to the client’s condition includes depression that came about after she lost
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the custody of her children. Furthermore, the separation from her family also led to social iso-

lation and she fell further into depression. Also, the client opened up and revealed that her
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joblessness was straining her financially and psychologically. After evaluating and assessing
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her situation, I recommended that she should always maintain positive thoughts and even
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treat herself every once in a while so that she would be motivated to work on the action plan.
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This would eventually help in improving her condition.

Ethical Considerations

During the role play, the major moral challenge that I was faced with was due to my

style of communication and empathetic values. According to Woodhouse (2007: 75), having

the right communication skills is important because they allow an individual to perform his or

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 Role Play and Reflective Essay 4

her tasks effectively and with mutual respect. Furthermore the body language of a health care

professional is also important when interacting with a patient. It should display professional-

ism and willingness to help the patient. It is also important to note that ethically, the patient

comes first. As a health care professional, especially one who works with patients suffering

from mental conditions, it is important to allow the client to open up voluntarily. Forcing

clients to open up and reveal their personal information is unethical (Oberjé, 2015:900). Also,

as a psychological health professional, I had to ignore my personal feelings and opinions so

as to focus on the client’s problems. This is part of maintaining ethics and professionalism.

Strength and Weaknesses

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While playing the role of the psychological health professional, one of the strengths

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that I was able to demonstrate was maintaining eye contact during the whole interaction. Ad-

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ditionally, I was an active listener and from time to time I repeated what the client has said to
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show that I was part of the conversation and that I valued her time and efforts. I wanted to
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show the patient that I understood her situation and that I was very attentive. I was also able
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to demonstrate empathy so the client was comfortable and I did not limit her responses. My

weakness mainly came out during the end of the role play session. I had planned what I was
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going to say but I got confused and stuttered making me sound unprofessional. I would en-
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sure to get my words right or even write them down if I could be able to do the role play dif-
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ferently.
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Conclusion

From the role play, my client was a patient suffering from psychological health issues

for 5 years. She lost her family and her job in the process. As a psychological health care

practitioner, my objective was to make her comfortable and help her get through the situa-

tions that affect her. The role playing assignment has been successful and revealed my

strengths and weaknesses.

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 Role Play and Reflective Essay 5

References

Koprowska, J., 2014. Communication and interpersonal skills in social work. Learning Mat-

ters.

Lane, C. and Rollnick, S., 2007. The use of simulated patients and role-play in communica-

tion skills training: a review of the literature to August 2005. Patient education and counsel-

ing, 67(1-2), pp.13-20.

Lane, C., Hood, K. and Rollnick, S., 2008. Teaching motivational interviewing: using role

play is as effective as using simulated patients. Medical Education, 42(6), pp.637-644.

Matthews, M., Gay, G. and Doherty, G., 2014, April. Taking part: role-play in the design of

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therapeutic systems. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Com-

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puting Systems (pp. 643-652). ACM.

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Oberjé, E.J., Dima, A.L., Pijnappel, F.J., Prins, J.M. and de Bruin, M., 2015. Assessing treat-
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ment-as-usual provided to control groups in adherence trials: exploring the use of an open-
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ended questionnaire for identifying behaviour change techniques. Psychology &

health, 30(8), pp.897-910.

Van Ments, M., 1999. The effective use of role-play: Practical techniques for improving
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learning. Kogan Page Publishers.

Woodhouse, J., 2007. Role play: A stage of learning. Strategies for healthcare education:
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How to teach in the 21th century, pp.71-80.

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