Communicating better
Communicating after a brain injury and with chronic pain can be difficult. If you want to have an important conversation, it can help to plan exactly what you want to say and write down your key points.
After a brain injury, it can become hard to communicate what you are thinking, feeling and living through. When you have chronic pain, you might also find it hard to talk about your pain and its effect on your life. Sharing what you are going through can help you to manage your pain by feeling more connected and understood by others.
If you have significant problems communicating with those around you, it can be helpful to work with an experienced speech therapist who can help you to re-learn how to talk and communicate and refresh your social and conversation skills.
There are two main parts to communicating well with others:
- You need to send a clear message.
- The other person needs to hear and understand it.
This sounds simple, but you use complex skills that you learn over time and need to keep practising. Problems can arise when these two parts do not match up together, such as the message sent was unclear or misunderstood by the other person. So be clear about what you want to say, but also think about what you are wanting to hear in return.
Giving a simple and clear message can be hard after you have a brain injury because you might forget some key ideas, go off topic or get confused. If you want to have an important conversation, it can help to think about what you exactly want to say and write down your key points.
To work on your communication read the Communicating better guide, then use those tips and tools to make a My plan for communicating better and learn to Be Pain Smart.