In my many years of counselling I’ve often used the phrase “you teach people how to treat you”. What this means is that we set people’s expectations around what is appropriate behaviour, what is not ok and what is ok, by the way we communicate, express ourselves and behave around them.
This is no less relevant in the interaction between the client or patient and the health care practitioner. We influence the role the client takes, their expectations of how to behave in the healthcare setting, and how engaged they become in managing their own health by the way we communicate with them. Our communication with clients is both overt, through our words and actions, and subtle, such as the messages we convey through our attire or expression or even the setup of the room.