| Course | NR 326 Mental Health Nursing |
|---|---|
| Week | 3 |
| Paper type | Process recording |
| Length | About 1,100 words, 5 pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Chamberlain University |
| Program | BSN (pre-licensure) |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for NR 326 Week 3
Process Recording: Six Minutes by the Laundry Room With a 33-Year-Old Woman Who Answers Everything With a Joke
Student Name
College of Nursing, Chamberlain University
NR 326: Mental Health Nursing
Instructor Name
Month Day, Year
Process Recording: Six Minutes by the Laundry Room With a 33-Year-Old Woman Who Answers Everything With a Joke
The Exchange and How It Was Recorded
The exchange took place at about 1030 on my second day on an adult inpatient unit, standing by the door of the patients' laundry room while Ms. T. waited for a dryer. Ms. T. is 33 and was admitted four days earlier with major depression after losing her job as a dental office manager; identifying details have been changed. I had been asked to spend time with her before the 1100 group. The conversation lasted about six minutes and ended when the dryer buzzed.
I wrote it down at 1115, during my break, from memory. The wording of her lines is close but not exact; the order of turns is as it happened, including the turn I would most like to remove. Table 1 gives the exchange in five columns: what she said, what I said, the technique I would name for my line now that I can see it, what her next line showed about its effect, and what I was feeling at the time.
The Recording
The exchange is reproduced in full below.
Table 1
Process Recording, Written at 1115 From Memory
| Ms. T. said | I said | Technique, named afterward | Effect, shown by her next line | What I felt |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| "Welcome to the spa. Towels are extra." | "Is this where everyone hangs out in the morning?" | Closed question about the unit, not her | She answered about the unit and made another joke | Relieved she was friendly; unsure how to start |
| "Only the elite. The dryer takes an hour, so it's basically my job now." | (laughed) "At least it's a job with good hours." | None; social joking back | She laughed, then looked at the floor for a few seconds | Pleased the joke landed, then uneasy at the silence |
| "Ha. Yeah. Better than my last one." | "Your last job?" | Restating | She opened the subject, briefly | Alert; this felt like the real topic |
| "Eleven years at the same office. They replaced me with software that books appointments. I trained the software." | "That sounds really unfair." | Offered my judgment instead of reflecting hers | She agreed and returned to jokes | Angry on her behalf; wanted to say something helpful |
| "Totally. Anyway, the robots win. Want to hear about the pudding here?" | "You said you trained it. What was that like?" | Returning to her words; open question | She stopped joking for the first time | Nervous that I was pushing |
| "Honestly? I kept thinking, I'm making the thing that gets rid of me. And I kept doing it. Every day." (dryer buzzes) | "I'd like to hear more about that. Can I find you after group?" | Offering self; setting a time to continue | She said, "Sure, if I'm not booked at the spa," and smiled | Frustrated at the timing; relieved to have a plan |
Note. Quotations are reconstructed from memory within about 45 minutes of the exchange.
Reading the Effect Column Forward
The effect column is the only evidence I have for whether any line worked, so I read it one row at a time. My first line was a closed question about the unit, and she answered about the unit with a joke. That is what the question asked for. My second line was the one I would most like to take out. When she said the dryer was basically her job now, I joked back about good hours. It felt natural and it made her laugh, and then she looked at the floor. I think the joke about a job, to a woman who had just lost one, landed on something, and my laughing told her the subject was a place for jokes. I leave it in because it is the turn the rest of the exchange had to recover from.
The third and fifth lines are the ones that opened anything, and both did the same thing: they gave her own words back to her. "Your last job?" and "You said you trained it" each produced a longer and less guarded answer than any question of mine that introduced a new idea. The fourth line, "That sounds really unfair," did the opposite. It was my judgment, not hers, and it gave her something easy to agree with. She agreed and changed the subject to pudding.
Peplau (1997) described the nurse and patient moving through an orientation phase in which the patient begins to identify problems and the nurse learns what the patient needs from the relationship. In six minutes, Ms. T. showed me her way of handling the orientation: she offers a joke first and waits to see whether the listener stays on the surface. When I stayed with her words, she went underneath. When I joined the joke or offered my opinion, she went back up.
The Feelings Column
My feelings column is less composed than I would like it to be. I was relieved when she was friendly, because I had expected someone harder to talk to. I was pleased when my joke made her laugh, and that pleasure is part of the problem: I wanted her to like me, and the joke was for me as much as for her. I was angry on her behalf when she described training the software, and that anger produced "That sounds really unfair," which was about my reaction, not her experience. When she finally said something real, I was nervous I had pushed too hard, and then frustrated when the dryer ended it. I did not feel afraid at any point, which surprised me given what I wrote in Week 1.
The Habit, Not the Retelling
The pattern across the exchange is mine, not hers. I follow her humor when she offers it, and I offer my own opinion when she offers pain. Both are ways of keeping the conversation comfortable for me. The lines that worked were the plainest ones: her own words, handed back with a question mark. Next time Ms. T. makes a joke about work, the sentence I intend to say is, "You joke about it a lot. What's it like when you're not joking?" I did find her after group. She talked for twenty minutes about the office, and she did not make a single joke until the end.
References
Peplau, H. E. (1997). Peplau's theory of interpersonal relations. Nursing Science Quarterly, 10(4), 162-167. https://doi.org/10.1177/089431849701000407
Reading the NR 326 Week 3 instructions
The process recording asks you to reproduce a conversation with a patient as closely as you can, then analyze your communication turn by turn. Most versions of the prompt ask for the setting, the verbatim exchange, the techniques you used, their effect, your feelings and a reflection on what you would change, with a nursing theory or source. Write the exchange down soon after it happens and say when you did. Keep the order of turns as it happened, including the line you regret. Fill the effect column with what the patient said next, not with her diagnosis or your hopes. Be honest in the feelings column. Close with a pattern in your own behavior rather than a summary of the conversation.
How the NR 326 Week 3 example is put together
The first section places the exchange at about 1030 on the second clinical day, by the laundry room door, and states that it was written from memory at 1115. Table 1 then sets out each turn across five columns, beginning with Ms. T.'s line about the spa and towels. The analysis reads the effect column one row at a time and finds that only the third and fifth student lines opened anything, both by handing her own words back. Peplau (1997) frames the humor as Ms. T.'s way of handling the orientation phase. The feelings section admits relief, pleasure at making her laugh and discomfort when she spoke about her job. The paper closes on the student's habit of following humor and offering opinions in response to pain.
Reading the NR 326 Week 3 grading rubric
Process recording rubrics at Chamberlain generally assign points to the description of the setting, the accuracy and completeness of the recorded dialogue, correct identification of techniques, analysis of their effect, self-awareness about feelings and a plan for improvement, plus APA. Most points sit in the analysis and self-awareness rows. Analysis is credited when each claim about a line rests on what the patient said next, which is why the effect column is read forward. Self-awareness earns its points through the admission of relief and pleasure, not through general statements about growth. Theory use scores when Peplau explains something in this conversation. The plan for improvement is graded on whether it names one sentence the writer will say differently, which the final section supplies.
NR 326 Week 3 help: mistakes that cost points
A process recording that reads too smoothly is the most common way to lose points, because every student line is open and every patient answer is generous, and instructors recognize the shape at once. Effect columns filled with diagnoses or intentions are a close second. Many students also tidy the order of turns or leave out the line they wish they had not said, which removes the evidence the analysis needs. Feelings written as "I felt comfortable" teach nothing. Change names and details that could identify the patient. Keep the table readable by quoting short lines. If your own conversation was short or awkward, tell us what was said and we can show how an NR 326 process recording would analyze it.
Get a NR 326 Week 3 example written to your instructions
Send the Week 3 form your section supplies and the kind of exchange it has to cover, and a custom example is written into that format and returned inside 24 to 48 hours. The first one is free. A conversation you actually had is yours to record and nobody else's to reconstruct, so what comes back models the columns.
More NR 326 papers and pre-licensure samples
- NR 326 Week 1: Psychiatric Unit Expectations Post
- NR 326 Week 2: Therapeutic Communication Exercise
- NR 326 Week 4: Mental Status Write-up
- NR 326 Week 5: Risk Assessment Write-up
- NR 326 Week 6: Case Study Analysis
- NR 326 Week 7: Therapeutic Milieu Brief
- NR 326 Week 8: Reflection
- NR 327 Week 3: Patient Teaching Plan
- NR 325 Week 3: Lab Trend Write-Up
- NR 328 Week 3: Well-child Visit Write-up
- NR 324 Week 3: Diabetes and Ankle Fracture Case
NR 326 Week 3 questions, answered
Can somebody write up the conversation I actually had?
No. What passed between you and a patient is your own account and it is not something anybody else can produce for you. An example can show the column layout, the level of detail the dialogue needs and what a strong analysis argues, and you build your own around your exchange. Where your section runs the assignment on a role play or a scenario it issued, that is coursework and works the same way.
How exact does the dialogue have to be?
As close as you can manage, with a note saying it came from memory. That note is expected rather than penalized. What loses points is dialogue improved in the writing, where both parties speak in longer and more articulate sentences than either managed at the time. Halting, repetitive and full of half sentences is what real talk looks like once it reaches paper.
What if the conversation barely went anywhere?
That is workable material and often better than a long one. A patient who answered in single words and then walked off leaves you a problem to account for, and the accounting is what the analysis column is built to hold. Recordings of easy conversations tend to score lowest, because nothing in them ever required a decision from the student.
Where can I find a free NR 326 Week 3 sample paper?
This page carries the complete Week 3 process recording, from the laundry room exchange with Ms. T. and its five-column table to the analysis of the student's habit and the Peplau reference.
What habit does the student find in the NR 326 Week 3 process recording?
The student follows the patient's humor when she offers it and gives an opinion when she offers pain, two ways of keeping the talk comfortable for the student rather than for her.