Real involvement is not only unavoidable but necessary in the therapeutic encounter. Patients recognize it instantly. With the terminally ill patient, comfort has a technology all its own. Ensuring the comfort of a terminally ill person requires meticulous devotion to myriad details, great practical knowledge, and continual exercise of creative ingenuity. It must be an aggressive effort and can be technically complicated.
Communication Talking with the dying is a paradoxical skill.
The wish to find the right thing to say is a well-meaning but misguided hope of persons who work with terminally ill patients. Practically every empirical study has emphasized the ability to listen over the ability to say something. Most people have a strong inner resistance to letting dying patients say what is on their minds. Don't worry about it. Getting to know the patient as a person is essential.