During this course the students shall be familiarized with the basic terms from theory of communication and communication skills. They will gain insight in connecting data from various fields of research, medicine psychology, general psychiatry, pre-clinical sciences and neuroscience, and that relate to the understanding of the origin and development of personality through interactive relationships with other people. This course shall enable student to acquire more easily communication skills, fundamentals of team work, inter-student cooperation and communication on various levels.

Further on, the student shall be introduced to the fundamentals of analytical theories which are significant in the field of communication, such as the attachment theory and attachment schemes, i.e. implicit memories based on early experiences of safety and danger, more pronounced in stressful situations because of the central role of attachment in the regulation of affect. Disorganized attachment holds a central place in many forms of psychopathology. Preservation of self-respect is the best protection against narcissistic vulnerability. The concepts of the real and false self shall also be discussed.

Students shall be prepared for the clinical contact with patient, they will gain skills and knowledge about the listening of patient's (and other people's) narration, about the left hemisphere – the interpreter and the right hemisphere which communicates via facial expression, body language, emotion. Narration requires semantic processing of the left hemisphere to be integrated with the emotional networks of the right hemisphere. The interrelationship between verbal (narrative) and non verbal (emotional) communication shall also be discussed as well as the distortions introduced by defences.

Based on the given data the students shall gain insight into the meaning of specific types of communication and in making hypotheses about how they can affect the other person. The level of understanding in communication shall be increased.

The students shall be introduced to different elements and types of communication essential for a health care provider, such as dysfunctional communication, self-disclosure, communication in crisis, reflection and interpretation, family dynamics and communication with significant others etc. 

During the course the students shall learn about the theories about the human psychological development, development of neuroscience and the places of direct implementation of scientific methods and procedures in everyday communication, work with the patients and team/group communication.

This course shall briefly discuss ethics in communication which will be dealt with in more depth in the course Medical ethics. 

Evaluation of the achieved level and quality of interpersonal relations in group shall be done at the beginning and the end of the work.