Applied Psychology for Nurses E-Book

Porter

• Herausgeber: Science & Technology Publishing
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 192

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

Applied Psychology for Nurses is a comprehensive guide authored by Mary F. Porter, designed to introduce nursing professionals and students to the essential principles of psychology as they relate to the practice of nursing. The book delves into the fundamental aspects of human behavior, mental processes, and emotional responses, emphasizing their direct application in patient care and the nurse-patient relationship. Through clear explanations and practical examples, Porter explores topics such as perception, attention, memory, emotion, and personality, highlighting how an understanding of these psychological concepts can enhance communication, empathy, and therapeutic effectiveness in nursing practice. The text also addresses the psychological needs of patients, the impact of illness on mental well-being, and the importance of recognizing individual differences in temperament and coping mechanisms. Special attention is given to the psychological challenges faced by both patients and nurses, including stress, anxiety, and the emotional demands of caregiving. Porter provides guidance on fostering a supportive environment, managing difficult behaviors, and promoting mental health and resilience among patients and healthcare teams. Applied Psychology for Nurses serves as both an educational resource and a practical manual, equipping nurses with the knowledge and skills necessary to understand and respond to the psychological dimensions of health and illness. Its accessible language and real-world focus make it an invaluable tool for enhancing patient care, improving nurse-patient interactions, and supporting the overall well-being of those in the nursing profession.

Leseprobe

Transcriber’s Note: A number of printer errors have been corrected. These are marked with mouse-hovers like this, and also listed at the end. The two diagrams on pages 50 and 96 were originally rendered using very large curly brackets. In this version, nested lists have been used, but links to images from the original are provided.

Applied Psychology for Nurses

By Mary F. Porter, A. B. Graduate Nurse; Teacher of Applied Psychology, Highland Hospital, Asheville, N. C.

Philadelphia and London W. B. Saunders Company 1921

Copyright, 1921, by W. B. Saunders Company

PRINTED IN AMERICA

PRESS OF W. B. SAUNDERS COMPANY PHILADELPHIA

TO THE MEMORY OF MY FATHER

FOREWORD

This little book is the outgrowth of a conviction, strengthened by some years of experience with hundreds of supposedly normal young people in schools and colleges, confirmed by my years of training in a neurological hospital and months of work in a big city general hospital, that it is of little value to help some people back to physical health if they are to carry with them through a prolonged life the miseries of a sick attitude. As nurses I believe it is our privilege and our duty to work for health of body and health of mind as inseparable. Experience has proved that too often the physically ill patient (hitherto nervously well) returns from hospital care addicted to the illness-accepting attitude for which the nurse must be held responsible.

I conceive of it as possible that every well trained nurse in our country shall consider it an essential to her professional success to leave her patient imbued with the will to health and better equipped to attain it because the sick attitude has been averted, or if already present, has been treated as really and intelligently as the sick body. To this end I have dealt with the simple principles of psychology only as the nurse can immediately apply them.

The writer wishes to acknowledge her indebtedness for criticism of this work and for several definitions better than her own, in the chapters The Normal Mind and Variations From Normal Mental Processes, to Dr. Robert S. Carroll, who through the years of hospital training helped her to translate her collegiate psychology from fascinating abstract principles into the sustaining bread of daily life.

Mary F. Porter.

Asheville, N. C.,August, 1921.

CONTENTS

PAGE

CHAPTER I

What is Psychology?

11

CHAPTER II

Consciousness

20

The Unconscious

23

Consciousness is Complex

29

Consciousness in Sleep

31

Consciousness in Delirium

32

CHAPTER III

Organs of Consciousness

34

The Central and Peripheral Nervous Systems in Action

35

The Sympathetic Nervous System

37

CHAPTER IV

Relation of Mind and Body

40

The Cerebrum or Forebrain

43

CHAPTER V

The Normal Mind

47

CHAPTER VI

The Normal Mind (

Continued

)

59

Instinct

59

Memory

62

The Place of Emotion

67

The Beginning of Reason

69

Development of Reason and Will

71

Judgment

72

Reaction Proportioned to Stimuli

75

Normal Emotional Reactions

77

The Normal Mind

77

CHAPTER VII

Psychology and Health

79

Necessity of Adaptability

80

The Power of Suggestion

84

One Thought Can Be Replaced by Another

89

Habit is a Conserver of Effort

90

The Saving Power of Will

93

CHAPTER VIII

Variations from Normal Mental Processes

95

Disorders and Perversions

95

CHAPTER IX

Variations from Normal Mental Processes (

Continued

)

101

Factors Causing Variations from Normal Mental Processes

108

Heredity

108

Environment

109

Personal Reactions

110

CHAPTER X

Attention the Root of Disease or Health Attitude

112

The Attention of Interest

112

The Attention of Reason and Will

118

CHAPTER XI

Getting the Patient’s Point of View

124

What Determines the Point of View

124

Getting the Other Man’s Point of View

126

The Deluded Patient

133

Nursing the Deluded Patient

135

The Obsessed Patient

136

The Mind a Prey to False Associations

137

CHAPTER XII

The Psychology of the Nurse

139

Accuracy of Perception

141

Training Perception

142

Association of Ideas

143

Concentration

146

Self-training in Memory

150

CHAPTER XIII

The Psychology of the Nurse (

Continued

)

152

Emotional Equilibrium

152

Self-correction

160

Training the Will

161

CHAPTER XIV

The Nurse of the Future

164

Index

169

Applied Psychology for Nurses

CHAPTER I WHAT IS PSYCHOLOGY?

Wise men study the sciences which deal with the origins and development of animal life, with the structure of the cells, with the effect of various diseases upon the tissues and fluids of the body; they study the causes of the reactions of the body cells to disease germs, and search for the origin and means of extermination of these enemies to health. They study the laws of physical well-being. They seek for the chemical principles governing the reactions of digestive fluids to the foods they must transform into heat and energy. So the doctor learns to combat disease with science, and at the same time to apply scientific laws of health that he may fortify the human body against the invasion of harmful germs. Thus, eventually, he makes medicine itself less necessary.

But another science must walk hand in hand today with that of medicine; for doctors and nurses are realizing as never before the power of mind over body, and the hopelessness of trying to cure the one without considering the other. Hence psychology has come into her own as a recognized science of the mind, just as biology, histology, chemistry, pathology, and medicine are recognized sciences governing the body. As these are concerned with the “how” and “why” of life, and of the body reactions, so psychology is concerned with the “how” and “why” of conduct and of thinking. For as truly as every infectious disease is caused by a definite germ, just as truly has every action of man its adequate explanation, and every thought its definite origin. As we would know the laws of the sciences governing man’s physical well-being that we might have body health, so we would know the laws of the mind and of its response to its world in order to attain and hold fast to mind health. Experience with patients soon proves to us nurses that the weal and woe of the one vitally affects the other.

“Psychology is the science of mental life, both of its phenomena and their conditions.”

So William James took up the burden of proof some thirty years ago, and assured a doubting world of men and women that there were laws in the realm of mind as certain and dependable as those applying to the world of matter—men and women who were not at all sure they had any right to get near enough the center of things to see the wheels go round. But today thousands of people are trying to find out something of the way the mind is conceived, and to understand its workings. And many of us have in our impatient, hasty investigation, self-analytically taken our mental machines all to pieces and are trying effortfully to put them together again. Some of us have made a pretty bad mess of it, for we tore out the screws and pulled apart the adjustments so hastily and carelessly that we cannot now find how they fit. And millions of other machines are working wrong because the engineers do not know how to keep them in order, put them in repair, or even what levers operate them. So books must be written—books of directions.

If you can glibly recite the definition above, know and explain the meaning of “mental life,” describe “its phenomena and their conditions,” illustrating from real life; if you can do this, and prove that psychology is a science, i. e., an organized system of knowledge on the workings of the mind—not mere speculation or plausible theory—then you are a psychologist, and can make your own definitions. Indeed, the test of the value of a course such as this should be your ability, at its end, to tell clearly, in a few words of your own, what psychology is.

The word science comes from a Latin root, scir, the infinitive form, scire, meaning to know. So a science is simply the accumulated, tested knowledge, the proved group of facts about a subject, all that is known of that subject to date. Hence, if psychology is a science, it is no longer a thing of guesses or theories, but is a grouping of confirmed facts about the mind, facts proved in the psychology laboratory even as chemical facts are demonstrated in the chemical laboratory. Wherein psychology departs from facts which can be proved by actual experience or by accurate tests, it becomes metaphysics, and is beyond the realm of science; for metaphysics deals with the realities of the supermind, or the soul, and its relations to life, and death, and God. Physics, chemistry, biology have all in their day been merely speculative. They were bodies of theory which might prove true or might not. When they worked, by actually being tried out, they became bodies of accepted facts, and are today called sciences. In the same way the laws of the working of the mind have been tested, and a body of assured facts about it has taken its place with other sciences.

It must be admitted that no psychologist is willing to stop with the known and proved, but, when he has presented that, dips into the fascinations of the yet unknown, and works with promising theory, which tomorrow may prove to be science also. But we will first find what they have verified, and make that the safe foundation for our own understanding of ourselves and others.

What do we mean by “mental life”?—or, we might say, the science of the life of the mind. And what is mind?

But let us start our quest by asking first what reasons we have for being sure mind exists. We find the proof of it in consciousness, although we shall learn later that the activities of the mind may at times be unconscious. So where consciousness is, we know there is mind; but where consciousness is not, we must find whether it has been, and is only temporarily withdrawn, before we say “Mind is not here.” And consciousness we might call awareness, or our personal recognition of being—awareness of me, and thee, and it. So we recognize mind by its evidences of awareness, i. e., by the body’s reaction to stimuli; and we find mind at the very dawn of animal life.

Consciousness is evidenced in the protozoön, the simplest form in which animal life is known to exist, by what we call its response to stimuli. The protozoön has a limited power of self-movement, and will accept or reject certain environments. But while we see that mind expresses itself in consciousness as vague, as dubious as that of the protozoön, we find it also as clear, as definite, as far reaching as that of the statesman, the chemist, the philosopher. Hence, the “phenomena of mental life” embrace the entire realms of feeling, knowing, willing—not of man alone, but of all creatures.

In our study, however, we shall limit ourselves to the psychology of the human mind, since that concerns us vitally as nurses. Animal psychology, race psychology, comparative psychology are not within the realm of our practical needs in hospital life. We would know the workings of man’s mind in disease and health. What are the instinctive responses to fear, as shown by babies and children and primitive races? What are the normal expressions of joy, of anger, or desire? What external conditions call forth these evidences? What are the acquired responses to the things which originally caused fear, or joy, or anger? How do grown-ups differ in their reactions to the same stimuli? Why do they differ? Why does one man walk firmly, with stern, set face, to meet danger? Why does another quake and run? Why does a third man approach it with a swagger, face it with a confident, reckless smile of defiance?

All these are legitimate questions for the psychologist. He will approach the study of man’s mind by finding how his body acts—that is, by watching the phenomena of mental life—under various conditions; then he will seek for the “why” of the action. For we can only conclude what is in the mind of another by interpreting his expression of his thinking and feeling. We cannot see within his mind. But experience with ourselves and others has taught us that certain attitudes of body, certain shades of countenance, certain gestures, tones of voice, spontaneous or willed actions, represent anger or joy, impatience or irritability, stern control or poise of mind. We realize that the average man has learned to conceal his mental reactions from the casual observer at will. But if we see him at an unguarded moment, we can very often get a fair idea of his mental attitude. Through these outward expressions we are able to judge to some extent of the phenomena of his mental life. But let us list them from our own minds as they occur to us this work-a-day moment, then, later on, find what elements go to make up the present consciousness.

As I turn my thoughts inward at this instant I am aware of these mental impressions passing in review:

You nurses for whom I am writing.

The hospitals you represent.

What you already know or do not know along these lines.

A child calling on the street some distance away.

A brilliant sunshine bringing out the sheen of the green grass.

The unmelodious call of a flicker in the pine-tree, and a towhee singing in the distance.

A whistling wind bending the pines.

A desire to throw work aside and go for a long tramp.

A patient moving about overhead (she is supposed to be out for her walk, and I’m wondering why she is not).

The face and voice of an old friend whom I was just now called from my work to see.

The plan and details of my writing.

The face and gestures of my old psychology professor and the assembled class engaged in a tangling metaphysic discussion.

A cramped position.

Some loose hair about my face distracting me.

An engagement at 7.30.

A sharp resolve to stop wool-gathering and finish this chapter.

And yet, until I stopped to examine my consciousness, I was keenly aware only of the thoughts on psychology I was trying to put on paper.

But how shall we classify these various contents?

Some are emotion, i. e., feelings; others are intellect, i. e., thoughts; still others represent determination, i. e., volition or will.

There is nothing in this varied consciousness that will not be included in one or another of these headings. Let us group the contents for ourselves.

The nurses for whom I am writing:

A result of memory and of imagination (both intellect). A sense of kinship and interest in them (emotion). A determination that they must have my best (will, volition).

And so of the hospitals:

My memory of hospitals I have known, and my mental picture of yours made up from piecing together the memories of various ones, the recollection of the feelings I had in them, etc. (intellect).

What you already know.

Speculation (intellect), the speculation based on my knowledge of other schools (memory which is intellect). A desire (emotion) that all nurses should know psychology.

Child calling on street.

Recognition of sound (intellect) and pleasant perception of his voice (emotion).

Desire to throw work aside and go for a tramp on this gorgeous day.

Emotion, restrained by stronger emotion of interest in work at hand, and intellect, which tells me that this is a work hour—and will, which orders me to pay attention to duties at hand.

So all the phenomena of mental life are included in feelings, thoughts, and volitions which accompany every minute of my waking life, and probably invade secretly every second of my sleeping life.

The conditions of mental life—what are they?

In man and the higher animals the central nervous system, which, anatomy teaches us, consists of the brain and spinal cord. (In the lowest forms of animal life, a diffused nervous system located throughout the protoplasm.)

An external world.

A peripheral nervous system connecting the central nervous system with the outside world.

The sympathetic nervous system, provided to assure automatic workings of the vital functions of the body. These organs of the mind will be discussed in a later chapter.

CHAPTER II CONSCIOUSNESS

We took a glimpse at random into the mental life of an adult consciousness, and found it very complicated, constantly changing. We found it packed with shifting material, which, on the surface, seemed to bear very little relation. We found reason, feeling, and will all interacting. We found nothing to indicate that a consciousness as simple as mere awareness might exist. We believe there might be such in the newborn babe, perhaps even in the baby a month old; but can we prove it? Let us look within again and see if there are not times of mere, bare consciousness in our own experience that give us the proof we need.

I have slept deeply all night. It is my usual waking time. Something from within or from without forces an impression upon my mind, and I stir, and slowly open my eyes. As yet I have really not seen anything. With my eyes open my mind still sleeps—but in a few seconds comes a possessing sense of well-being. Obeying some stimulus, not recognized by the senses as yet, I begin to stretch and yawn, then close my eyes and settle down into my pillows as for another nap. I am not aware that I am I, that I am awake, that I have yawned and stretched. I have a pleasant, half-dreamy feeling, but could not give it a name. For those few seconds this is all my world—a pleasant drowsiness, a being possessed by comfort. My consciousness is mere awareness—a pleasant awareness of uncomplicated existence. In another moment or two it is a consciousness of a day’s work or pleasure ahead, the necessity of rising, dressing, planning the day, the alert reaction of pleasure or displeasure to what it is to bring, the effort to recall the dreams of sleep—the complicated consciousness of the mature man or woman. But I started the day with a mental condition close to pure sensation, a vague feeling of something different than what was just before.

Or this bare consciousness may come in the moment of acute shock, when the sense of suffering, quite disconnected from its cause, pervades my entire being; or at the second when I am first “coming back” after a faint, or at the first stepping out from an anesthetic. In these experiences most of us can recall a very simple mental content, and can prove to our own satisfaction that there is such a thing as mere awareness, a consciousness probably close akin to that of the lower levels of animal life, or to that of the newborn babe when he first opens his eyes to life.

Consciousness, then, in its elements, is the simplest mental reaction to what the senses bring.

How shall we determine when consciousness exists? What are its tests?

The response of the mind to stimuli, made evident by the body’s reaction, gives the proof of consciousness in man or lower animal.

But what do we mean by a stimulus?

Light stimulates me to close my eyes when first entering its glare from a dark room, or to open them when it plays upon my eyelids as I sleep and the morning sun reaches me. It is a stimulus from without.

The fear-thought, which makes my body tremble, my pupils grow wide, and whitens my cheeks, is a stimulus from within.

An unexpected shot in the woods near-by, which changes the whole trend of my thinking and startles me into investigating its cause, is a stimulus from without causing a change within.

A stimulus, then, is anything within or without the body that arouses awareness; and this is usually evidenced by some physical change, however slight—perhaps only by dilated pupils or an expression of relief. When we see the reaction of the body to the stimulus we know there is consciousness. On the other hand, we cannot say that consciousness is always absent when the usual response does not occur; for there may be injury to organs accounting for the lack of visible reaction, while the mind itself may respond. But with due care, in even such cases, some external symptoms of response can usually be found if consciousness exists.

We have already realized how complex, intricate, and changing is fully developed consciousness.

The Unconscious

But the mind of man knows two distinct conditions of activity—the conscious and the unconscious. Mind is not always wide awake. We recognize what we call the conscious mind as the ruling force in our lives. But how many things I do without conscious attention; how often I find myself deep in an unexplainable mood; how the fragrance of a flower will sometimes turn the tide of a day for me and make me square my shoulders and go at my task with renewed vigor; or a casual glimpse of a face in the street turn my attention away from my errand and settle my mind into a brown study. Usually I am alert enough to control these errant reactions, but I am keenly aware of their demands upon my mind, and frequently it is only with conscious effort that I am kept upon my way unswerved by them, though not unmoved.

When we realize that nothing that has ever happened in our experience is forgotten; that nothing once in consciousness altogether drops out, but is stored away waiting to be used some day—waiting for a voice from the conscious world to recall it from oblivion—then we grasp the fact that the quality of present thought or reaction is largely determined by the sum of all past thinking and acting. Just as my body is the result of the heritage of many ancestors plus the food I give it and the use to which I subject it, so my mind’s capacity is determined by my inheritance plus the mental food I give it, plus everything to which I have subjected it since the day I was born. For it forgets absolutely nothing.

“That is not true,” you say, “for I have tried desperately to remember certain incidents, certain lessons learned—and they are gone. Moreover, I cannot remember what happened back there in my babyhood.”

Ah, but you are mistaken, my friend. For you react to your task today differently because of the thing which you learned and have “forgotten.” Your mind works differently because of what you disregarded then. “You” have forgotten it, but your brain-cells, your nerve-cells have not; and you are not quite the same person you would be without that forgotten experience, or that pressing stimulus, which you never consciously recognized, but allowed your subconsciousness to accept. Some night you have a strange, incomprehensible dream. You cannot find its source, but it is merely the re-enacting of some past sensation or experience of your own, fantastically arrayed. Some day you stop short in your hurried walk with a feeling of compulsion which you cannot resist. You know no reason for it, but some association with this particular spot, or some vague