HW450 Unit 3 Communication Strategies Analysis Example

The Question I Should Not Have Asked About the Wine: A Unit 3 Analysis of Communication Strategies in Three Coaching Sessions

[Student Name]

Purdue University Global

HW450: Applied Health Coaching

Unit 3 Communication Strategies Analysis

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The client, sessions and quotations are composite; the frameworks and studies cited are real.

Why Communication Is the Intervention

In coaching, the conversation is not a vehicle for the intervention; it is the intervention. Wolever et al. (2013), reviewing how coaching has been defined across studies, describe a process that is patient-centered, involves goals set by the client, uses self-discovery and active learning and includes accountability, all delivered through a relationship. If the relationship fails, nothing else in the program reaches the client. That makes the analysis of communication a central part of applied coaching rather than a soft skill beside it.

Open Questions

In session one, I asked, "What would you like to be different in three months?" Teresa answered with both her goals, staying off medication and having more patience with her mother. A closed question such as "Do you want to lower your blood pressure?" would have produced a yes and missed the second goal, which turned out to matter more to her.

Open questions invite the client to choose what is important. Miller and Rollnick (2013) treat them as one of the core skills of motivational interviewing because they hand the direction of the conversation to the client.

Reflections

When Teresa said evenings were the hardest, I reflected, "By six o'clock you've already given everything you have." She paused and said, "Yes. That's exactly it." The reflection did not add information, but it showed I had understood, and she went on to describe the evening routine in detail: her mother's dinner, medications, bath and the hours of repeated questions.

Complex reflections, which add a guess about meaning, were the most powerful. When she mentioned the wine in session two, I reflected, "The glass of wine is the first moment of the day that's yours." She agreed and added that she knew it was not good for her blood pressure.

Affirmations

Teresa is hard on herself. When she reported a complete week of morning and evening home readings, I said, "You did that on top of everything else this week." Affirmations recognize effort and strengths rather than praising outcomes, and they seemed to lower her guard. She began bringing her log without being asked.

Summaries

At the end of each session, I summarized her own words and decisions and asked if I had them right. In session two she corrected my summary: I had said she would "cut back on takeout," and she said she had only agreed to try one home-cooked meal a week. The correction mattered. It showed that summaries let the client keep ownership of her decisions.

Teresa corrected my summary, and that correction was the best evidence that the goals in the plan were hers.

Asking Permission

Before sharing information about sodium in frozen meals, I asked, "Would it help if I shared what some people find when they check the labels?" She said yes. Information offered with permission was received as help rather than criticism.

The Strategy That Failed

In session two, before the reflection about the wine, I asked a closed question: "How many glasses do you have on a typical night?" Teresa's tone changed. She said, "Not that many," and moved to another topic. A count felt like an audit, especially because she had worried at intake that her employer might see her information.

I repaired it later in the session. I said, "Earlier I asked you to count the wine, and I think that felt like being checked up on. I'm sorry. I'm more interested in what the evening is like for you." That apology and the reflection that followed reopened the subject. By session three she volunteered that she drank one or two glasses most nights and wanted to cut back to weekends.

The lesson is that a closed question about a sensitive behavior can be heard as judgment, and that naming the rupture openly can repair it.

Cultural Humility

Teresa's family is Mexican American, and caring for her mother at home rather than in a facility is, in her words, "what we do." Early in session one I nearly suggested looking into memory care. I did not, and instead asked what caring for her mother meant to her. The idea of cultural humility began in medical education as an alternative to treating culture as a list of facts to master; it asks the helper to keep examining their own assumptions and to let each client teach them what matters (Tervalon & Murray-García, 1998). Asking rather than assuming meant that later, when we discussed respite, she raised the idea of an adult day program herself, framed as a way to keep caring for her mother at home longer.

How Teresa Described the Sessions

At the end of session three I asked Teresa what had made the conversations useful so far. She said she had expected to be told to eat salad and walk more, and instead she had been asked what her evenings were like. She said the moment that mattered most was the apology about the wine question, because it showed her that I would notice when something felt wrong. That answer confirmed what the analysis suggests: what worked was whatever showed her she was being listened to, and the repair mattered as much as any technique.

Strategies Considered and Not Used

Two strategies were deliberately held back. I did not use confrontation or warnings about her father's stroke, though she had mentioned it, because fear-based messages tend to produce defensiveness when a client already feels judged. I also did not use detailed goal contracts in the first sessions, because she was still deciding what she wanted to change, and a contract would have committed her before she was ready. Both may have a place later, but not before the relationship could carry them.

What the Analysis Shows

Across three sessions, the strategies that built the relationship were those that handed control to Teresa: open questions, reflections that showed understanding, affirmations of effort, summaries she could correct and information offered with permission. The one that damaged it took control away. Cultural humility kept me from imposing a solution that would have conflicted with her values.

What I Will Do Differently

I will avoid counting questions about sensitive behaviors until trust is established, and when I need numbers, I will ask the client to track them herself and share what she chooses. I will also notice my own impulse to suggest solutions that reflect my assumptions about family and care.

Conclusion

Teresa's openness grew because the conversations followed her lead. Open questions, reflections, affirmations, summaries and permission built trust, a closed question about wine damaged it briefly and an honest repair restored it. Cultural humility shaped the most important decision of the early sessions by keeping her values, not mine, at the center.

References

Miller, W. R., & Rollnick, S. (2013). Motivational interviewing: Helping people change (3rd ed.). Guilford Press.

Tervalon, M., & Murray-García, J. (1998). Cultural humility versus cultural competence: A critical distinction in defining physician training outcomes in multicultural education. Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved, 9(2), 117-125. https://doi.org/10.1353/hpu.2010.0233

Wolever, R. Q., Simmons, L. A., Sforzo, G. A., Dill, D., Kaye, M., Bechard, E. M., Southard, M. E., Kennedy, M., Vosloo, J., & Yang, N. (2013). A systematic review of the literature on health and wellness coaching: Defining a key behavioral intervention in healthcare. Global Advances in Health and Medicine, 2(4), 38-57. https://doi.org/10.7453/gahmj.2013.042