Communication is the art of sharing, receiving and passing information between two or more people. During the conversations, the medical team of Professor Vivian Bearing employ some techniques reminisce in the nursing profession. To start with, there is an elaborate use of silence as a communication technique, especially in the instances where there is interior monolog. It is demonstrated by the use of dots to connote silence. For instance, when she says, “I can’t believe that my life has become so Corny,” shows that it was silence as a technique. Reflecting is also a technique that Dr Bearing uses as a communication technique to direct feeling back to herself, especially during interior monolog, and moments of personal judgements (Margaret, 2013).
The health care providers showed acceptance with one another’s points view in several instances. For instance, when a doctor restates the position of another medical officer, like “yes you said” Accepting help and confirming gratitude in a broken manner, in a voicing doubt. At the end of the movie, the nurse calls her sweetheart, and she doubts herself in a self-reflective and restating technique of communication. It is often through acceptance of the authority of the nurses when she is under pain and weight of the medicine. She accepts the happenings of the medics to control her as they deem fit. It was an acceptable communication technique. The sick professor explores the thoughts of the past, through interior monologue and explores through conversations with the nurses.
Ashford, on the other hand is philosophical and sentimental by presenting reality to the readers and fellow health care providers. For instance, when Ashford says, “a little allegory of the soul. No matter where it hides. God will find it,” is presentation of reality as a communication technique (Simon, 1994, p. 78).
There are general stages outlined to record grief include denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. At the beginning of the film when she was diagnosed with the ovarian cancer, her mind and body were in denial. It implies that she refused to give into the complications of her disease to allow the healthcare providers to treat her in the best way they know how. At the beginning stages of dealing with the grief that accosted her, she grew angry to the advances of the medics to help her. It then followed a series of grief named above up to the point when she was broken with the pain and rigorous chemotherapy sessions. At the tail end of her predicament was depressed, to the point of remaining alone, thereafter, she accepted her situation. At some point, she allowed the nurses to call her sweetheart, something that she could not accept during her heydays. Intuitively, she despaired and during her times of depression, she realized that she ought to have been more friendly and alive to the pleas and cries of the people who were in her care and subordination.
In principle, denial as it refers to grief and loss is a conscious or unconscious refusal to accept facts and information and reality concerning the situation at hand. It is widely assumed to be a defence mechanism, and it is naturally acceptable and excusable. Death or dying is not easy to avoid, and some people stick in this circumstance. Dr Bearing Vivian moved from this situation to the next stage of grief, loss and death. Anger shows that some of the people could be close to them, could be angry with themselves or other people (Margaret, 2013). Bargaining is a form of compromise with a deity such as God, like questioning as to why these things happen the way they happen. During the depression period, it is also called preparatory grieving, and it was at this time is when Dr Bearing Vivian was broken and realized herself of the things that could have happened. It was when she would sit herself and have self-reflection and thoughts about her previous life. She would grieve and worry about her life through stress and sorrows. Acceptance is a stage of embracing the situation as it is the reality of matters. During the dying stages and ages of the professor, she degenerated to her sorrows and accepted her fate as it was. It was demonstrated when she allowed the nurses to call her sweetheart (Watkin, 2004, p. 242).
I found the last scenes of the movie sad and emotional for me as a viewer. The director of the movie portrays the last scenes as preparatory, because the main character, Dr Bearing Vivian was a proud person at the beginning of the movie and in the last parts she died a broken man. It was a painstakingly slow process, and where the viewer of the movie is in the mood of sadness and the person is set to accept the process that would follow. Personally, I was shocked at how the main character had undergone a transformation from a proud lecturer to the last person who was devastated. It is saddening because I hold the opinion that she ought to have recovered and shared the transformed messages.
References
Margaret Edson. (2013, September 25). Wit (Video file) Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IyEsnzH1uE
Goldsworthy, K. K. (2005). Grief and loss theory in social work practice: All changes involve loss, just as all losses require change. Australian Social Work, 58(2), 167-178.
Simon, M. K., Hinedi, S. M., & Lindsey, W. C. (1994).Digital communication techniques. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: PTR Prentice Hall, 912.
Watkin, W. (2004).On Mourning: Theories of Loss in Modern Literature. Edinburgh University Press.
