DLA 1203- Exam 5

1. Psychology and
Communication
KEY TERMS, INDIVIDUAL PARADIGMS, COMMUNICATION,
LISTENING SKILLS, VERBAL AND NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION

2. Introduction
 Communication is the foundation of dental
care.
 The DA must gain an understanding of the
patients being treated.
How and why they think and act as they do
 In order to do this, the DA must develop good
communication skills.
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3.  Communication is behind every action taken by the dental team.
 The message is to be transmitted as clearly as possible, and when
the patient, or other staff member sends the response, it is critical
to listen before providing feedback.
 Watching for nonverbal communication is essential of obtaining
the entire message.
 The dental assistant must develop the skills needed to overcome
the patients defense mechanisms and fears, as well as understand
how people from other cultures and generations interact.
 Stress will be encountered in the dental office, and it is important
to recognize it and be able to effectively achieve a conflict
resolution.
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4. Psychology and Understanding
Individual Paradigms
 Every dental team member is responsible for communicating well,
and treating each patient and coworker respectfully.
 Through these efforts, patients can overcome their fear of dental
treatment.
 Employees must have a positive attitude toward patients and their
treatment.
 The DA must understand patients, and how to meet patient needs
during dental treatment.
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5. Psychology and Individual Paradigms
 Psychology is a science of the mind and of the reasons
people think and act the way they do.
 Individuals associate dental treatment with discomfort.
 Dentistry works diligently to make treatment pain free and does
whatever possible to make every patient comfortable.
 It is critical to understand patients attitudes toward dentistry, and listen
to their views about their dental experiences.
 With this information, the DA can better help patients overcome the
fears that may have

6. Psychology and Understanding
Individual Paradigms
 Paradigms
 Acquired belief system
 People have different life experiences that have contributed to their personal
belief systems or paradigms.
 Examples would be that some people believe that a hard bristled tooth brush
will get their teeth cleaner. They have always used a hard-bristled brush and
have no cavities.
 Therefore, they believe hard brushes clean teeth better than soft-bristled brushes,
even though evidence shows that soft-bristled brushes do a better job.
 The dental assistant might have difficult time changing this persons paradigm.
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7. Hard-Bristle vs Soft-Bristle
 The dental assistant can make an assessment using good
communication.
 If the teeth are indeed clean in all areas, and it does not appear
that damage is being done to the tooth or tissue, then the DA can
encourage the patient to continue the existing practice.
 But, if the hard-bristled brush is damaging the teeth and gums, or
failing to clean the entire tooth surface, then the DA will have to
begin educating the patient and changing the patient’s paradigm.
 It may be hard to associated clean teeth with a soft brush so good
communication and listening skills are needed.
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8. Hard-Bristle vs Soft-Bristle
 Listen to the patient first, and tell the patient what to expect
when trying a new brush.
 answer the questions and acknowledge and address each of the
patient’s concerns.
 Watch the patients’ nonverbal behavior an dwork with the
patient to understand necessary changes in behavior
 The patients behavior may not change immediately.
 Motivate the patient to continue the changed behavior at
subsequent appointments.
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9. Communication
 Transmitting thoughts, ideas, feelings, facts, and
other information is done through verbal and
nonverbal behavior.
 Every time a person communicates with another
person, even if no verbal comments are taking
place, information is being transmitted.
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10. Communication
 People can’t help but communicate.
 Words don’t have to be spoken to understand what a person if
thinking or feeling.
 Body language, gestures, and expressions can also help to
detect the message someone is sending.
 A key to all communication is good listening skills.
 Communication skills can be learned and developed, and are
extremely important in patient care.

11. Communication
Communication involves:
The message
The act of passing along information
Transmitting the idea
Or receiving the message
Connecting with another individual
Providing feedback
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12. Communication
 Verbal
 Voicing the spoken word
 Non-verbal
 Body language
 Gestures
 Facial expressions
 Listening is crucial
 You have two ears and one mouth, so listen twice as much.
 People often start to formulate a response before they hear the entire
question.
 This could cause you to miss information, and answer incorrectly.

13. Communication
 In the dental office, a staff member
may be going over a case
presentation, a patient may say
something like “I just want to fix the
front teeth”
What does this mean?
What is important to this patient?
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14. Communication
 Further communication with that patient could reveal
that they are applying for a new job, or have their
daughters wedding and wants to look good in pictures.
 Once an understanding is reached as to where the
patients are coming from, the treatment plan can be
established to help meet these needs.
 How does the “why” effect the reason?
 What information could we gather from “her daughters wedding”
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15. Communication
 Sender
The individual who begins the communication
process by generating the message.
The senses of taste, touch, smell, or other
external stimuli may inspire the individual to
begin communication.
Other internal stimuli may include feelings of
delight, hunger, fatigue, or anger

16. Communication
 Encoding
 Anything could be the source (or encoding) of the stimulus for
communication.
 The use of specific signs, symbols, interpersonal communication,
or language in sending a message is called encoding.
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17. Communication
 Message
 An individual starts with an idea, and then formulates that idea and sends
it through a message to another individual.
 The sender must shape the idea, which often starts as an image the
sender visualizes, into a message by translating the image into words that
others can understand.
 This complicated process happens so routinely during the day, that most
people are unaware of it.
 The message is the stimuli
 Written, verbal, or non-verbal communication
 Produced by the sender to which the receiver will respond.
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18. Communication
 Reception of the message could occur through different
channels:
 Auditory: hearing the message
 Visual: seeing the message
 Kinesthetic: sending the message through physical means, such
as touch
 DA’s use each of these channels during a clinical
procedure.

19. Communication
 It is critical to be a good listener
 Patients may feel comfortable because of the
connection they have with the auxiliary
They may share more information with you than they
would with the dentist.
In addition, when the dentist arrives, items are placed
into the mouth, and it is more difficult for the patient
to communicate verbally.
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20. Communication
 DA’s also observe the patient during tx.
 Is the patient tightening his or her eyes?
 Are his or her knuckles white because his or her hands are
tightly clutching the arms of the chair?
 The dentist is focusing on the procedure at hand, and
can normally only see the tooth being worked on.
 It is the DA responsibility to view the entire situation.
 Some dentists count on the assistant to be their eyes, and to
notify them if the patient is uncomfortable.
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21. Communication
 DA’s possess the quality of empathy for patients.
 They also have the ability to communicate through kinesthetic
channel, by using a procedural touch and;
 Asking the patient “How does that feel?” or “How are you
doing?”
 They may also use the caring touch by touching the patients
arm during the anesthesia process, or any other procedure that
appears to make the patient fearful or uncomfortable.
 This reassuring touch shows the auxiliary to be compassionate,
concerned, and empathetic
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22. Communication
 In the dental office, the channel of communication could be lost due to the
pressure of time.
 Often the DA or dentist does not follow up on the channel method in which the
message is being sent.
 The DA may read the signs and ignore them due to lack of time, and the fact that
the next patient is waiting for treatment.
 Often, in such a rushed atmosphere, patients may feel that it is not worth going into
what is bothering them, and they hold back because they feel that they cannot share
how they feel about something.
 The DA needs to develop skills to identify when time should be taken to ensure that
the patient’s needs are being met.
 These skills are developed over time, after the DA understands the entire operation of the
office, as well as when time can be made up and when more time is needed for a patient
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23. Communication
 Receiver
Takes the message and must make some sense of it
This process using feelings, intentions, and thoughts
from a person’s paradigm.
Much of the message encoding comes from all the
nonverbal clues the sender used to transmit the
message.
Much credence is given to the way in which the
message was delivered.
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24. Communication
 Feedback
 It is critical that the message is decoded correctly before
providing feedback.
 Is the intent of the message clear?
 If not, state it back to the sender for correct interpretation.
 After making sure the message is clear, the individual formulates a
response, much like the initial sender did.
 An idea is given shape and words are picked to mirror, or express, the
idea to the other person.
 This interchange occurs until both people feel their ideas are
expressed in the manner in which they are intended, or they
continue to another area of discussion.
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25. Communication Process
 The receiver of the message
must decode the message
to make sense of it.
 Once the receiver feels he
or she understands the
message, he or she
reiterates the message to
the sender to clarify the
meaning.

26. Listening Skills
 Key to communication
 We spend more time listening than performing
any other type of communication.
 Most college students spend 50% of their time
listening, and 35% reading and writing and only
about 15% is spent talking… or less for you guys
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27. Listening Skills
 Barriers to listening may include:
 Preoccupation
 Message overload
 External noise
 Effort
 Being distracted can distort clear communication.
 It is essential that you not bring personal problems to your
workplace; you must be able to give all your attention to your
patients.
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28. Listening Skills
 We experience overload because of the quantity of messages we encounter
each day is tremendous.
 Because we spend half hour time listening, its impossible to stay focused and
listen actively.
 The mind wanders and listening stops.
 Often, there is also external noise, which distracts us and makes it hard to listen.
 It is important to keep conversations with coworkers and other students away from
operatories. Even if you think you’re speaking quietly, we can hear you, and become
distracted from the task at hand.
 The external noise comes from other speaking, telephones ringing, music, ect
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29. Listening Skills
 When active listening takes place, the receiver encodes
the message and responds, during two-way
communication.
 People can tell if they are listening actively, because they
understand what has been said.
 In a dental office, it is critical to train your mind to listen
to the patient so that you can understand other people
more often and with greater clarity..
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30. Listening Skills
 The DA will be required to listen to the concerns of
patients and respond accordingly.
 They will also chart medical and dental patient history
correctly, so active listening is a MUST!
 The DA will need to listen to the dentist direction when
carrying out patient tx.
 It may help to repeat the content back to the patient or
dentist.
 Example: “I understand that you said the discomfort started
several days ago in the upper left side of the face, close to this
tooth.”
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31. Listening Skills
 Telephone listening
 First impression of office
 Tone reflects attitude
 Identifying patient needs
 Transmitting accurate data
 Even though you cannot be seen, you still are able to project nonverbally.
 Your attitude is projected to the other end of the line by how you listen and
respond.
 Being short and interrupting the patient does not reflect a constructive
office environment.
 Even on the phone, you need to sit with the correct posture, and respond
with the correct facial expression.
 These actions have an effect on the message sent to the caller, and will convey
the message that you want to listen.

32. Verbal and Nonverbal
Communication
 Less than 20% of communication is verbal (speaking)
 Around 80% of communication is NONVERBAL
 Body language can communicate more than spoken words
 Unconscious way we move our bodies
 Physical and spatial distance kept between individuals
 Posture and position
 Facial expressions
 Gestures
 perceptions.
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33. Verbal and Nonverbal
Communication
 Nonverbal communication is learned as infants
 The tone of a voice, and the presence or
absence of a smile are picked up readily by an
infant through nonverbal means
 The infant adapts leaned behaviors that bring
positive responses from the caregiver
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34. Territoriality or Spatial Relation
 Indicates the amount of space an individual needs to feel comfortable with
others.
 This distance changes with the group we are in.
 Intimate touching, normally within six inches, is usually encountered with close family
members or close friends.
 In the first day of class, students define their space with textbooks and papers.
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35. Territoriality or Spatial Relation
 The dental office, sometimes the procedures the DA are doing require the
assistant to invade the patient’s space.
 It is best that the DA tell the patient about the procedure so that it will not be
perceived as threatening.
 The patient can then feel empowered by deciding to allow the treatment to proceed.
 This builds a sense of trust with the patient.
 After informing the patient, sit and perform invasive procedures, if possible, from
the side.
 When working straight toward the patient, the spatial distance required is much
greater.
 Individuals are usually more comfortable sharing the space to their side.
 People of various cultures handle territoriality and personal space differently.
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36. Posture and Position
 Posture indicates to DAs how patients are responding
 If the patient is tight
 it may indicate the patient feels threatened.
 The patient may be seated with arms and legs crossed.
 Which is a message of closure or resistance
 Slumped shoulders
 Patient could be depressed or discouraged
 Legs uncrossed, hands loose on the chair arms, and slightly laid-
back
 Appears to be open to suggestions
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37. Posture and Position
The manner in which the DA positions
themselves is also important
Standing over the patient may indicate
superiority.
Sitting close to the patient, and leaning
toward expresses interest, warmth,
acceptance and caring.
This arrangement allows the patient to feel
valued, listened to, and cared for.
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38. Facial Expression
 Most observed and critical components of nonverbal
communication
 The senders eyes give the message receiver great insight
 Emotions (happiness, sadness, anger)
 Eyebrows (puzzlement, worry, questioning, surprise)
 The DA should regularly check the patients eyes during a
procedure for nonverbal communication.
 Patients can also see your facial expressions, even if you’re
wearing a mask!!
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39. Gestures
 Like facial expressions, gestures are a common form of nonverbal
communication.
 Even while in a car at a stop light, nonverbal communication can
be observed inside the cars close to us.
 Gestures make it fairly easy to tell if the patient is angry, happy,
or just trying to make a point to another individual
 When we talk, we often use our hands to communicate
 It enhances the spoken word by emphasizing content, and holding the
attention of the receiver
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40. Perception
 It is critical that dental assistants develop good
perception skills as they relate to patient
communication
 The DA must be aware of the feelings of others and be
able to sense patient’s moods and their attitude toward
treatment
 Initially, the DA can watch and observe other
healthcare workers using good perception skills, and
then emulate the other’s examples.
 Soon, the DA will master good perception skills.
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