Elementary psychotherapy as a method of building and maintaining contact with the patient and the importance of shaping interpersonal competence in health care professions

The task of elementary psychotherapy is to provide psychological support to the patient and their strength during the disease and adaptation to changes. Basic techniques can be used by all members of the therapeutic team. Building contact on the basis of elemen-tary psychotherapy is largely about developing soft skills; in health care professions they are necessary, to establish satisfying rela-tionships with patients and their families. The list of interpersonal competences is extensive, but when referring directly to the per-formance of health care professions, the following competences undoubtedly come to the fore: assertiveness, communicativeness and establishing contact, readiness to learn, coping with stress, and cooperation within a team. For graduates, using soft skills is still difficult, and their deficit often causes them to move away from the patient out of a sense of helplessness. Currently, university edu-cation lacks continuity in the development of interpersonal competences. A postulate to solve this problem is the introduction of workshop and training forms as part of didactic classes.