Person-centered Communication in Healthcare
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Healthcare is inevitably a person-oriented context. One person, the clinician, "treats" the other person, the patient.
This modern conceptualization, though, of "patient" and "clinician" introduces a strange phenomenon. It positions the clinician as the one who knows or has all the answers, and the patient as the one seeking help or answers. It effectively renders the patient helpless or powerless. In many, if not all, modern clinical contexts, the interventions--such as blood tests, imaging studies, or medications--are seen as the magic wand that "makes" the patient better. However, this transactional view of healthcare and treatment completely misses the most important aspect of health and care: human connection. |
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The most basic human needs are to be seen, heard, and valued.
In healthcare contexts that are focused entirely on physical symptoms, mechanical tests, and interventions targeting physiology, this crucial need to be seen, heard, and valued can easily be lost entirely.
The remedy to such transactional, mechanism-focused healthcare is person-centered communication.
In healthcare contexts that are focused entirely on physical symptoms, mechanical tests, and interventions targeting physiology, this crucial need to be seen, heard, and valued can easily be lost entirely.
The remedy to such transactional, mechanism-focused healthcare is person-centered communication.
How is communication person centered?
The Glasgow Consensus Statement on Effective Communication in Clinical Encounters (Makoul et al., 2024) should be considered the foundational text for person-centered communication in healthcare contexts.
My take on the topic is this:
To make a communicative act person-centered, the speaker must view the other person as a whole, capable person with important knowledge of their own life and needs.
The speaker reinforces the other person's agency (i.e., ability to act and be the decision maker) in their own lives.
Most people looking to clinicians for help or treatment feel quite helpless, at least in regards to the single or multiple symptoms that they have not been able to resolve on their own.
That helplessness in the face of uncertainty is distressing.
And when humans are distressed, we need social connection. We need social support. We need to know we are not alone and that someone is on our side.
Person-centered communication reassures "patients" (a convenient and efficient way of describing someone seeking care for bothersome symptoms) that they are not alone. That they have power. That they are experiencing something potentially quite difficult, but that they have another human by their side while doing so.
The methods used to impart these important messages are rather simple. But they go against the model of clinician as one-who-knows-all and patient as one-who-doesn't-know.
These include:
My take on the topic is this:
To make a communicative act person-centered, the speaker must view the other person as a whole, capable person with important knowledge of their own life and needs.
The speaker reinforces the other person's agency (i.e., ability to act and be the decision maker) in their own lives.
Most people looking to clinicians for help or treatment feel quite helpless, at least in regards to the single or multiple symptoms that they have not been able to resolve on their own.
That helplessness in the face of uncertainty is distressing.
And when humans are distressed, we need social connection. We need social support. We need to know we are not alone and that someone is on our side.
Person-centered communication reassures "patients" (a convenient and efficient way of describing someone seeking care for bothersome symptoms) that they are not alone. That they have power. That they are experiencing something potentially quite difficult, but that they have another human by their side while doing so.
The methods used to impart these important messages are rather simple. But they go against the model of clinician as one-who-knows-all and patient as one-who-doesn't-know.
These include:
- Clinicians expressing empathy when patients express (verbal or nonverbal) emotions**
- Clinicians aligning with patients and their emotional needs, rather than being positioned above or away from patients
- Clinicians owning their own expertise while also making clear that the patient has their own
- Clinicians asking open-ended questions and listening deeply to understand, rather than to immediately respond with "the right answer"
Thus, person-centered communication is about a way of being with another person, rather than just the words that one says.
To be effective, clinicians need to be willing to be vulnerable and emotionally present, rather than to be the slightly removed, all-knowing expert.
Having expertise is an important part of being a clinician. But so is honesty in the face of uncertainty, as well as acknowledging the emotions that are present in the room of every clinical encounter.
In short, person-centered communication is about being human in the presence of another human.
Everyone can learn and practice the primary person-centered skills of active listening, mirroring, empathy, and emotional attunement. People who seek healthcare for persistent pain conditions consistently report in qualitative studies that these are the skills they are seeking from clinicians, even when the solution to their pain is not immediately known.
**Two excellent, very recent studies on the impact of clinicians' empathic communication on patients' back pain are Chapman et al. (2026) and Licciardone et al., (2024). Links to those articles are provided at the bottom of the page.
To be effective, clinicians need to be willing to be vulnerable and emotionally present, rather than to be the slightly removed, all-knowing expert.
Having expertise is an important part of being a clinician. But so is honesty in the face of uncertainty, as well as acknowledging the emotions that are present in the room of every clinical encounter.
In short, person-centered communication is about being human in the presence of another human.
Everyone can learn and practice the primary person-centered skills of active listening, mirroring, empathy, and emotional attunement. People who seek healthcare for persistent pain conditions consistently report in qualitative studies that these are the skills they are seeking from clinicians, even when the solution to their pain is not immediately known.
**Two excellent, very recent studies on the impact of clinicians' empathic communication on patients' back pain are Chapman et al. (2026) and Licciardone et al., (2024). Links to those articles are provided at the bottom of the page.
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