There are various very simple techniques that a dentist must use when they are confronted with a nervous or anxious patient. These techniques can also be used to treat routine regular patients who are not nervous but also patients at the other end of the nervous scale to the point where they are called phobic patients. One of these techniques is called mirroring. And excellent example to show this technique in practice is in a cafe or coffee shop. So if you go into a cafe or a coffee shop and you sit down, try to look at two people near you who are also sitting down having a cup of tea or coffee. I will also assume that these two people are friends and therefore in the rapport with each other. You will notice that the body posture and stance is very similar if they are in rapport with each other. The really interesting aspect of this is when one person carries out an action. This action would be when that person lifts their cup of tea to drink and you will notice that as soon as this happens, the other person will also almost simultaneously pick up the cup of tea to drink also. Furthermore you will notice that if one person puts their hand on a table the other person will also simultaneously put their hand on the table as well. This phenomenon is called mirroring. This is because one person is almost a mirror image of the other in the way their posture is and when posture also changes as well.
A version of this technique is very useful to use in the dental setting. Let’s imagine a nervous patient comes into the practice and sits down. Because they are nervous, they will have their legs crossed and even their arms crossed and maybe looking downwards. To this point, you also mirror their body language by having your legs crossed, arms crossed and even looking not directly at them. As you start talking to them, you will ask them certain questions which are cold open ended questions which are designed for the patient to start conversing and communicating with you. Once you sense that you are establishing some positive communication you can then start to slowly uncross your leg, make sure that your hands arms are in a more open stance and when this happens you will notice that the patient will also start to do this. This is because you are gaining rapport with the patient. The patients will then sense that you are on the side and the patient will naturally start to become more relaxed as you mirror their posture.
There are however a few caveats. One of these is that you shouldn’t make it too obvious and you shouldn’t replicate the patient’s body movements to accurately. This is because a patient may sense that you are trying to mimic them on purpose. The other caveat is that this technique won’t work that effective on its own however it is highly effective when done in conjunction with other techniques that also help to relax patients.
Dr Muzzafar Zaman 