| Course | NR 326 Mental Health Nursing |
|---|---|
| Week | 8 |
| Paper type | Clinical reflection |
| Length | About 1,160 words, 6 pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Chamberlain University |
| Program | BSN (pre-licensure) |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for NR 326 Week 8
Reflection: I Used to Talk Faster When a Patient Talked Faster, and What I Do Now in the First Thirty Seconds
Student Name
College of Nursing, Chamberlain University
NR 326: Mental Health Nursing
Instructor Name
Month Day, Year
Reflection: I Used to Talk Faster When a Patient Talked Faster, and What I Do Now in the First Thirty Seconds
The Change
The change I can report from this term is small. When a patient speaks to me fast and loud, I used to match them: my voice rose, my sentences got longer, and I explained more. Now I do the opposite on purpose. I slow down, I lower my voice, I say one short sentence at a time, and I stand a little to the side instead of square in front of the person. I cannot say that I feel more confident on a psychiatric unit, and I am not sure confidence is the right measure. What I can say is that the first thirty seconds of a certain kind of encounter now go differently, and I can describe exactly how.
The Exchange That Produced It
On my third day, a man in his forties who was in a manic episode followed me down the corridor, talking very quickly about a business plan and asking me to get him a phone so he could call investors. Details have been changed. I stopped and tried to explain the unit's phone hours. He talked over me. I explained again, louder, and added the reason for the rule. He got louder too and stepped closer, close enough that I stepped back into the wall. I remember thinking, very clearly, that I did not know what would happen next.
A nurse came around the corner and stood beside me, slightly apart from both of us. She said his name once, quietly, and waited. Then she said, "The phone opens at one. It's eleven-thirty. Walk with me to the board and I'll show you." He kept talking, but he walked with her. The whole thing took perhaps forty seconds. Afterward she said to me, not unkindly, "You were giving him more to push against."
I went back to the reading that evening. Price and Baker (2012), synthesizing eleven studies of de-escalation, grouped the skills they found into themes that included maintaining personal control and verbal and nonverbal skills. I had read that paper in Week 2 and could have listed its themes on a test. What I had not understood was that personal control was something I could lose in a corridor while I thought I was being reasonable.
Fear, Named as a Presentation
The patients I found hardest were not the ones I expected. Before the placement, I expected to be most uneasy with patients who were psychotic and quiet. In practice, the presentation that frightened me was a person who was fast, loud and physically close: someone in a manic state, or someone who was intoxicated and irritable in the first day of admission. The fear was not that I would be hurt. It was that I would not be able to stop what was happening, and that my words would make it worse. The corridor showed me that the second part was true.
The First Thirty Seconds, Now
I have tried the approach four times since, twice with the same man. I stop at least an arm's length away and a little to one side. I say the person's name, once, at a lower volume than theirs. I let them finish at least one sentence without interrupting. Then I give one short, true statement and, if I can, one choice: "Lunch is in twenty minutes. Do you want to wait in the day room or walk with me?" I do not explain the rule a second time. Twice the person slowed down within a minute. Once, with a woman who was intoxicated, nothing I did changed her pace, and I went to get the nurse, which I now think was also the right thing to do. Once, with the man from the corridor, he laughed at how quietly I was speaking and then imitated me, and for a moment we were both speaking quietly.
Each piece of that has a reason I can now say out loud. Standing to one side leaves the person a way past me and does not feel like a challenge, which squaring up in a corridor does. A lower voice gives them something to adjust toward rather than something to rise above. One sentence at a time means I am not handing over a paragraph for them to argue with, which is exactly what I did on the third day. And the choice matters most. Price and Baker (2012) describe autonomy-confirming interventions as one of the strategies in de-escalation, set alongside limit setting. Offering two acceptable options is the smallest version of that I can manage: the limit stays where it is, lunch is still in twenty minutes, but the person decides something about how the next twenty minutes go.
What Is Still Unresolved
Eight weeks did not settle everything. I still do not know what to do when a patient is not loud but is saying things about me: my appearance, my age, whether I have a boyfriend. Twice this happened, and both times I laughed nervously and changed the subject, which I suspect told the patient it was acceptable. The slow-and-quiet approach does not seem to fit, because the problem is not speed. I asked my instructor, and she suggested naming the behavior once, plainly, and redirecting. I have not tried it yet.
There is a second thing I have not resolved, which is how much of what worked in the corridor belonged to the nurse rather than to the technique. She had worked on the unit for years, the man knew her, and she arrived as a second person, which may have mattered more than anything she said. When I use the same steps alone with someone who has never seen me before, I do not know how much of the effect will remain. I will only find out by trying it on a unit where I am new again.
A Goal the Size of a Shift
Henderson et al. (2007) found that a positive clinical placement had the greatest influence on nursing students' self-reported knowledge, skills and attitudes in mental health. I do not know whether my placement will change my career plans, and I am wary of claiming it has. My goal for my next rotation, on a medical-surgical unit, is narrower: the next time a patient or family member is shouting at me, I will stop talking for a full breath before I answer, and my first sentence will be shorter than theirs. That is something my instructor could watch me do, and something I could fail to do and notice.
References
Henderson, S., Happell, B., & Martin, T. (2007). Impact of theory and clinical placement on undergraduate students' mental health nursing knowledge, skills, and attitudes. International Journal of Mental Health Nursing, 16(2), 116-125. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1447-0349.2007.00454.x
Price, O., & Baker, J. (2012). Key components of de-escalation techniques: A thematic synthesis. International Journal of Mental Health Nursing, 21(4), 310-319. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1447-0349.2011.00793.x
What the NR 326 Week 8 assignment asks for
The final NR 326 reflection asks you to look back on the course and your clinical experience and describe how your knowledge, skills or attitudes have changed. The usual list includes specific examples, connection to course concepts or evidence, honest discussion of challenges, goals for future practice and APA. Choose one change you can show in a single encounter instead of reporting greater confidence. Tie it to the exchange that caused it, including what went wrong. Explain what you do now, step by step, and why each step works. Name what still troubles you. Set a goal small enough that an instructor could watch you meet it on one shift.
How the NR 326 Week 8 example is put together
The first section states the change plainly: matching a fast, loud patient used to raise the writer's own voice, and now it lowers it. The second section describes the third clinical day, when a man in a manic episode followed the writer down the corridor asking for a phone to call investors, and the nurse who said his name once and walked him to the board. Price and Baker (2012) connect the moment to de-escalation themes. A section names fast, loud, close patients as the presentation that frightened the writer. The next describes the first thirty seconds now: an arm's length to one side, the name said once, a pause. Unresolved questions follow, and Henderson and colleagues frame the closing goal.
Reading the NR 326 Week 8 grading rubric
Reflection rubrics at Chamberlain typically award points for depth of self-reflection, specific examples from clinical practice, links to course concepts or evidence, discussion of challenges, goals for growth and APA. Depth of reflection scores best when the change is a behavior tied to one encounter, which this paper states in its opening lines. The example row is earned through the corridor exchange, told with its failure intact. Evidence counts when Price and Baker explain what the nurse did, not when they are quoted for general support. The challenge row is met by the unresolved section on personal remarks and the question of how much the nurse's experience mattered. A goal sized to a single shift completes the growth row.
NR 326 Week 8 help from the desk
Reflections lose the most points when they are written to the instructor instead of the prompt, thanking them for the course and saying that mental health nursing matters. A second common loss is growth reported as a feeling, with confidence that has increased and no exchange to show it. Students also choose an encounter that went perfectly, which leaves nothing to learn from, or set career goals no one can check. Sources dropped in at the end without connecting to the story earn little. Keep identifying details changed and the patient's dignity intact. If you know what changed for you but not how to show it, send us the moment it happened, and we can outline how an NR 326 reflection would tell it.
Get a NR 326 Week 8 example written to your instructions
Send the Week 8 prompts your classroom issued along with a line about the kind of patient you found hardest to talk to, and a custom example is written to those prompts and returned inside 24 to 48 hours. The first one is free. Your own exchanges stay yours; what comes back shows the shape of the answer.
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 3: Process Recording Example
- NR 326 Week 4: Mental Status Exam Write-Up
- NR 326 Week 5: Suicide Risk Assessment Write-Up
- NR 326 Week 6: Psychotic Depression Case Study
- NR 326 Week 7: Therapeutic Milieu Brief
- NR 327 Week 8: Family Care Plan
- NR 325 Week 8: Opioid Sedation Deterioration Paper
- NR 328 Week 8: Case Study Analysis
- NR 324 Week 8: Pacemaker Discharge Summary Paper
NR 326 Week 8 questions, answered
Is it acceptable to say a patient frightened me?
In this course it is often the required answer. Faculty who supervise psychiatric rotations expect it, and read a reflection reporting no discomfort at all as either guarded or written for the marker. The part earning credit is what came next: what you did with the fear at the time, what you do now, and whether either of those changed how the person was cared for.
Can I quote from my own process recording?
Yes, and it is the best material this course hands you, because your own words are on the page and the difference shows without anybody taking your account of it on trust. Refer to the exchange rather than reproducing it at length, keep the patient out of the reflection except as a presentation type, and spend no space defending whatever grade came back.
What if nothing about me changed?
Then write about what you now notice, which is nearly always different even where the behavior is not. Catching a silence while it is happening rather than an hour afterward is a genuine finding and instructors recognize it as one. An honest account of a small change outscores a claim of transformation that nothing in the term's own documents supports.
Where can I find a free NR 326 Week 8 sample paper?
The complete Week 8 reflection on slowing down with fast, loud patients, including the corridor exchange, the step-by-step approach, the open questions and two references, is on this page.
What does the writer do in the first thirty seconds in the NR 326 Week 8 reflection?
Stops at least an arm's length away and slightly to one side, says the person's name once at a lower volume, lets them finish at least one sentence, then gives one short true statement and, where possible, one choice.