In pursuing the idea of conceptualizing comfort as a proper aim of
psychiatric nursing I extracted 12 nurse behaviors from my clinical data
that were used repeatedly to increase patient comfort. I quantified
these behaviors for two months. The following are a list of these
behaviors with a representative example of all but the first. The first
was too general and continuous for example.
1. I focused on recognizing patients by name, being certain I
was correct about their names, and using their names often and
appropriately. I also introduced myself. Names were viewed as
supportive to the internalization of personal feelings of
dignity and worth.
2. I interpreted, taught, and gave as much honest information
as I could about patients' situations when it was sought or
when puzzlement was apparent. This was based on the belief that
it was their life, and choice was their prerogative since they
were their own projects.
_Examples_
(a) While drinking coffee with a few patients at the dining room table
suddenly we could hear Sidney, in his customary way, wailing, moaning,
and muttering in another room. It is a sad sound. I was about to get up
and go to him as I often do, when Arthur, who was sitting next to me,
face working, and tense posture-wise, aggravatedly said, "Sidney doesn't
have to do that, he should control himself, the rest of us control
ourselves." I said, "When others express how miserable they feel, it
sometimes arouses our own feelings about our misery." This was an
attempt to provoke 32-year-old Arthur to work on his own {114} feelings
of misery and to deter his projection of anger at himself out onto
Sidney. Arthur looked at me sharply, like he had gotten the message, and
agreed by relaxedly nodding his head.
(b) Alice, diagnosed as manic depressive, has been depressed. This
depression dates from her going out to a department store and asking for
a job. She was hired for a five-day-a-week job. This was done on her
own. Later her readiness for a five-day-a-week job and her participation
in the unit were questioned. Then Alice became depressed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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