Helping Counselors Understand Emotional Disturbance through Roleplaying

<p>The use of clinical role-play and reflection in learning therapeutic communication skills in mental health education: an integrative review</p>

“…As mentioned before, students are likely to have conflicting experiences as they move between class and practice 1,9. This study will focus on role-play, which is one of the most established forms of simulation and has been used for decades in teaching students clinical skills 1,3,10. For almost 100 years, reflective thinking has been described as a continuous assessment of knowledge.11 Yet, there seem to be few studies that investigate methods combining reflection and role-play in teaching mental health, and whether doing so, bridges the gap between knowledge from class and practice.…”

“…The use of role-play in mental health education allows students to become active participants and at the core of their learning 1. Because textbook descriptions cannot adequately communicate what it feels like to be disturbed or in conflict, Scheffler10,12 introduced a method for teaching the interview of a psychiatric patient in early 1970s. Students played the roles of both the client and the interviewer.…”

“…In Scheffler’s model, students were assigned roles that involved doing a subjective selection of the characteristics of a specific diagnosis and explaining and enacting the selection in role-play. The method was successful in decreasing students’ anxiety, enabling them better to understand concepts and skills and enhancing identification with the client 10,12. Martin and Kahn13 also described a method whereby the students role-played patients and doctors during simulated medical interviews.…”