APTEI: Therapeutic Alliance: 20 Skills to Maximize Patient Trust & Loyalty

Overview

Greater Therapeutic Alliance (TA) has been associated with improved treatment adherence and positive outcomes in patients receiving care from psychiatrists, physicians, nurses, and physiotherapy.

By the end of this online course, you will have at your fingertips 20 skills to maximize the therapeutic alliance with your patients which will inevitably also help increase their trust & loyalty to you and enhance your patient outcomes.

When you start to focus on enhancing your therapeutic alliance, you will without a doubt feel greater job satisfaction and joy at work.

Top 10 reasons PTs don’t take communication skills training as a priority:

1. If I get too close to my patients I will get compassion fatigue - FALSE: Enhancing TA results in greater enjoyment of work and energy, there is no fatigue in being caring
2. Not in my scope of practice- FALSE: It is fully in our scope of practice to reduce fear, anxiety and stress related to pain and disability
3. I have no training in it from school, I am not a psychologist - FALSE: This is not psychology, it is simply being caring, polite & kind
4. It takes time to talk to patients - FALSE: It takes no more time to be polite & considerate 
5. You may open up a Pandora’s box - FALSE: With good therapeutic alliance, you are in control to guide the conversation
6. I have studied biomechanical manual therapy for several years and can’t give that up - FALSE: Who said anything about giving up anything?
7. Patients' psychosocial issues are none of my business - FALSE: Are you kidding me? Fear of movement, anxiety over pain, stress over disability is in our scope
8. I am afraid of becoming too personal with my patients - FALSE: With enhanced therapeutic alliance, you are in control
9. Patients do not expect us to delve into their personal lives - FALSE: Seriously? Patients WANT us to help them with the functional activities that they are unable to do
10. It’s common sense, I know it already, it comes naturally - FALSE: It is not common sense BUT it can be learnt; hence the purpose of this course

However, what is TRUE: The only reason we need as PTs to address TA is ...that the science backs it up.

Studies show that therapeutic alliance is a stronger factor to recovery from low back pain than IFC, manual therapy or stabilization exercises.

A 2010 systematic review has concluded “From this review, the alliance between therapist and patient appears to have a positive effect on treatment outcome in physical rehabilitation settings.” (Hall et al 2010)

Join this insightful physiotherapy online course by Bahram Jam, the founder of the Advanced Physical Therapy Education Institute!

Short Video Introduction with Bahram Jam