Applied Psychology for Nurses by Mary F. Porter (good short books .TXT) 📖

which forces things to be servants of its will; one which makes harmony of life by fulfilling the laws of the soul as well as of the intellect and of the body.

If we believe that life exists for the development of mind into a force of intellect and character and soul, then we need not ask why a nurse should know something of the laws of mind. She does not ask why she should know anatomy or pathology. Her work is dependent upon such knowledge. But if the center of life, the thing which makes the body a living, moving, acting agent instead of a clod, is mind; if the one thing which makes a difference between animal life and mineral and vegetable life is consciousness, i. e., mind; and if everything that affects that body, its organ, affects mind also—then surely no nurse can afford to learn only the rules of repair or of keeping in order the instrument of consciousness, without knowing what effect her efforts have on the mind itself. It is as though an ignorant maid accepted a piano as merely a piece of furniture to be kept clean and shining, and in her zeal to that end scrubbed the keyboard with soap and water which, dripping down into the body of the instrument, swells and damages its felts, rusts and corrodes its keys, and ruins its notes. When she knows that she may thus make impossible the beautiful sounds she has heard it give, and that the more carefully the keyboard is handled the more sure is the beauty resulting, her care is to keep it as free as possible of dust, to see that the top is down and the keyboard covered when she sweeps—and to clean it hereafter in such a way as to never injure its tone.

The nurse has a much greater function than merely to help in saving the body and keeping its machinery in order. If the aim of life is the strengthening and perfecting of the mind—that “urge” of life, then surely the nurse’s big aim will be to help establish such health of body as leads toward health of mind. In the average man or woman this vital urge becomes temporarily blocked by the very weakness of the body it urges. The body must give the life-flame some fuel, or it dies out; but with very little fuel it flickers on, waiting, hoping for the more that it may burn strongly again. In the cases the nurse handles very often the “vital spark” has been poorly fed by the disabled body, and so discouragement or depression, or “loss of grip” results, or the flame continues to shine brightly with whatever little sustenance it receives, and so encourages the body to greater effort for it; or sinks into embers, glowing steadily though dully; or it burns wildly, recklessly—it becomes what we call “wild fire,” that has no direction and no purpose save to burn up everything it can find.

In other words, the nurse deals with those in whom the “urge” is weakened—the depressed and discouraged; with those whose spirits never flag in their steady shining—those brave souls we could almost worship; and those others who hold grimly on with quiet grit and courage, but with no cheer; and with the unstable ones of neuropathic or psychopathic tendency who become hysteric or maniacal.

What will the nurse do for them all? Will not an understanding of how to recall the ambition to live, the will to get well, and the grit to see the thing through, be an incalculable asset.

The Nurse of the Future

The nurse of the future will not be merely a handmaiden to care for the sick body by deftly carrying out the doctor’s orders. She will do this almost automatically as a matter of course, and skilfully; but it will be the merest beginning of her mission. That mission itself will be to eliminate the causes of disease; to teach the ways of health, to supervise the sanitary conditions of city, town, and country. Practical ways and the wise means to this end will be taught in her hospital, which will become a community center with clinics, teaching through its doctors and nurses the way to health, instead of merely treating and advising the cases as they come. But the greatest contribution of the nurse of the future will be a wide-spread desire for health and will to health, rather than a desire and will to avoid discomfort and pain and danger of death. This will to health will doom in the sane mind the disease-accepting attitude. It will do all that common sense and applied medical science can do to strengthen the body; then it will take what life brings in the way of unavoidable disease and weakness and inability, with an uncringing mind. It will hold the mind’s attitude to serenity and poise and accomplishment within the necessary limits of its disordered body. It will be master of its dwelling and make the most of the little the body can give, and force all bearable weakness and pain to be stepping-stones to endurance and will-strength and cheer. It will not accept physical limitations as final things. If life must be lived in a prison-house it will be its own jailer, and fill the rooms with flowers, music, friends, and happiness.

No nurse is competent to help her patient to overcome any curable physical weakness, and keep the mind serene in the face of the incurable, until she herself has learned that the will to health is capable of transforming disease of body, from disaster, into health of mind and soul.

The nurse of the future will know the laws of mind as she knows the course of disease; she will be dedicated to such wise care of existing disease as will lead to prevention of future disease; and she will be a sworn, trained ally of the health-accepting mind.

INDEX A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Absent-mindedness, 64 Absolutes, 54 Abstract concept, 52 object concepts, 53 quality concepts, 53 Accuracy of perception, 141 Action cannot be separated from feeling, 68 Acts, compulsive, 106 Adaptability, 79 necessity of, 80 Amnesia, 103 Anesthesia, 101 Aphasia, 103 Apperception, 54 Association of ideas, 143 Attention, 79 of interest, 112 of reason and will, 118 root of disease or health attitude, 112 Autosuggestion, 84 Awareness, 15 Bad habits, 91 Beginning of reason, 69 Body and mind, relation of, 40 Borderland disorders, 107 Brain, 33 hind, 43 Censor, 31 Central and peripheral nervous systems in action, 35 Cerebellum, 43 Cerebrum, 43 functions of, 45 Clear thinking, steps to, 140 Compulsive acts, 106 ideas, 103 Concentration, 146 Concepts, 52 abstract, 52 object, 53 quality, 53 concrete, 52 Concrete concepts, 52 Consciousness, 15, 20, 21 definition, 15 flow of, 47 in delirium, 32 in sleep, 31 is complex, 29 organs of, 34 personal, 57 Delirium, consciousness in, 32 Deluded patient, 133 nursing of, 135 Delusion, 104 nihilistic, 104 of reference, 104 somatic, 104 Determination, 18 Development of reason and will, 71 Disease attitude, attention, root of, 112 Disorders, 95 borderland, 107 of emotion, 99 of functions of intellect, 96 of ideation, 97 of judgment, 99 of memory, 98 of perception, 96 of reason, 98 of sensation, 96 of will, 99 Disorientation, 103 Distractibility, 105 Effort, habit a conserver of, 90 Emotion, 18, 45, 49 disorders of, 99 the place of, 67 Emotional equilibrium, 152 reaction, normal, 77 Environment as cause of variation from normal mental processes, 109 Equilibrium, emotional, 152 False associations, mind a prey to, 137 Feeling, 49 cannot be separated from action, 68 from thinking, 67 from will, 68 Fixed idea, 103 Flight of ideas, 102 Forebrain, 43 Future, the nurse of the, 164 Getting other man’s point of view, 126 patient’s point of view, 124 Habit a conserver of effort, 90 bad, 91 hospital, 92 Habit-formation, 79 Hallucination, 101 Health and psychology, 79 attitude, attention, root of, 112 Heredity as course of variation from normal mental processes, 108 Hind brain, 43 Hospital habit, 92 How to study, 146 Hurt, 70 Hyperesthesia, 101 Hypersuggestability, 84 Hypochondriasis, 102, 108 Hysteria, 107 Idea, compulsive, 103 fixed, 103 Ideas, association of, 143 flight of, 102 Ideation, 52 disorders of, 97 Ideogenous pains, 103 Illusion, 101 Imagination, 58 Impulses, insane, 108 Inhibition, morbid, 104 Inorganic memory, 52 Insane impulses, 108 Insanity, 107 Instinct, 59 Instincts, list of, 61 Intellect, 18, 45 functions of, disorders of, 96 Interest, attention of, 112 Judgment, 56, 72 disorders of, 99 Life, mental, 14 conditions of, 19 phenomena of, 15 Mania, 107 Melancholia, 107 Memory, 51, 62 disorders of, 98 inorganic, 52 organic, 51 self-training in, 150 Mental disability, states of, 100 life, 14 conditions of, 19 phenomena of, 15 processes, normal, variations from, 95, 101 factors causing, 108 Mind, 14, 33 a prey to false associations, 137 and body, relation of, 40 functions of, 50 normal, 47, 77 Mood, 49 Morbid inhibition, 104 Motion, 26 Movement, 26 Mutism, 106 Necessity of adaptability, 80 Negativism,