ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the ways the mentors create positive, nurturing environments based on trust, empathy and congruence, through which mentees empowered to accept their ‘story’ and take ownership of their development. Creating the right environment for mentoring is essential in cultivating the trust that allows for open and honest communication. This in turn nurtures the reflective process, which is key in the critical evaluation of practice and advancement. Rapport describes a harmonious liaison between people who feel they have a sense of connection, so its basis is founded on mutual attentiveness, positivity, and the generation of the feeling that the conversation and participants are ‘in sync’. There is no foolproof way of creating rapport with another person and generating a set of guidelines may suggest that there is a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach, something that by its very nature reduces human communication to a mechanistic, rather than a relational, process.
