Part 17 (2/2)
[9] Karl Popper, _Conjectures and Refutations_ (New York: Basic Books, Publishers, 1963).
[10] John Dewey, _The Knowing and the Known_ (Boston: The Beacon Press, 1949) and ”The Process of Thought from How We Think,” in _Gateway to the Great Books_, ed. Robert W. Hutchins, et al. (Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1963).
[11] Martin Buber, _Between Man and Man_, trans. Ronald Gregor Smith (Boston: Beacon Press, 1955); _I and Thou_, 2nd ed., trans. Ronald Gregor Smith (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1958); _The Knowledge of Man_, ed. Maurice Friedman (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1965).
[12] Henri Bergson, ”Introduction to Metaphysics,” in _Philosophy in the Twentieth Century_, Vol. III, ed. William Barrett and Henry D. Aiken (New York: Random House, 1962) and ”Time in the History of Western Philosophy,” in _Philosophy in the Twentieth Century_, Vol. III, ed.
William Barrett and Henry D. Aiken (New York: Random House, 1962).
[13] Norman Cousins, _Who Speaks for Man_ (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1953).
[14] Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, _Letters from a Traveler_, (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1962) and _The Phenomenon of Man_ (New York: Harper Torchbooks, Harper & Row, Publishers, 1961).
[15] Nietzsche, _The Philosophy of Nietzsche_, p. 441.
[16] Buber, _The Knowledge of Man_, Appendix, p. 168.
[17] Wilfrid Desan, _Planetary Man_ (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1972), p. 77.
[18] Josephine G. Paterson, ”Echo into Tomorrow: A Mental Health Psychiatric Philosophical Conceptualization of Nursing” (D.N.Sc.
dissertation, Boston University, 1969).
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APPENDIX
NURSE BEHAVIORS EXTRACTED FROM CLINICAL DATA
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 partic.i.p.ation in the unit were questioned. Then Alice became depressed.
Alice was sitting in the dayroom. I sat down next to her. She looked very sad, her eyelids as well as her mouth, drooped. Her mouth worked as if she wanted to talk, but she was quiet. I asked her about her job decision. She said that she had not taken it. I said, ”You look so sad that I feel like holding your hand.” Her hands were in her coat pockets, but she looked at me and smiled weakly. I said, ”Sometimes a conflict of wanting to do two things at once in the present and not being able to can bring up the feelings of a past very much more important similar experience.” Alice just shook her head up and down and looked at me.
Alice is in her mid-forties. Later I was walking down the hall to leave saying goodbyes to various people. Alice came out of a side room, put both her hands out to me, and said, ”goodbye and thank you.” In a previous contact Alice had discussed her suicidal thoughts with me.
3. I verbalized my acceptance of patients' expressions of feelings with explanations of why I experienced these feelings of acceptance when I could do this authentically and appropriately.
_Example_
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