Values Practice Issues Within Mental Health Nursing Practice

Values behave Issues Within Mental health Nursing PracticeUsing the values identified in the attached parole (empathy and importance of self expression) review prepare a 2000 word discussion and analysis of values practice issues within noetic wellness nursing practice.IntroductionThis essay aims to explore well-nigh issues around values and practice in psychological health nursing. The essay builds upon a previous human of work undertaken as a formative assignment, a review of a book read by the author, which raised some key points which may be important in moral health nursing practice. The process of uncovering these issues, in response to reviewing and reading a work of fiction, was one which led to a connection of ideas, from what the book presented, and from the authors personal experience, life experience, and clinical experience and learning to date.The identified issues are to do with benignity, empathy and the importance of self-expression. These are solely issu es which the author believes are actually much taken for granted in everyday life, but which become very significant for users of psychogenic health services, and for moral health service providers, because they affect many areas of the person, their experience, and the therapeutical kin. This essay will explore these issues in the light of some of the published theory and debate on these topics, and the authors own point of view and experiences.DiscussionIt would await that within psychological health nursing, the parityship between the mental health confine and the client is very important, but this relationship is based on certain values which must underpin nursing complaint (Eagger et al, 2005), and certain take aways or requirements that the client might nip in relation to the give suck. Nurses working within a framework of values is no new thing, and values (and ethics) lease of all time underpinned medicine and healthcare (Eagger et al, 2005). According to Svedb erg et al (2003), Mental health is created by the interwoven process of ones relationship to oneself and to others, which would suggest that the relationships the client forms with anyone snarly in keep goinging mental health are doubly important.The client may find self-expression important for themselves, but overly they will require compassion from the mental health nurse. The nurse, in turn, may be challenged by the clients self-expression, and may find it hard to feel compassion or to sympathize with the client at times.One of the challenges of providing compassionate care and even for the mental health nurse to experience compassion is the supposed relationship which some authors have found between perceived suffering and health care provider compassion. Schulz et al (2007) suggest that at that place are links between perceived suffering and the level of caregiver compassion. If this is the case, then it could be argued that some mental health nurses who do not feel or display compassion are doing so because on some level they do not perceive or believe the client to be truly suffering, or to be worthy of compassion. This would raise an ethical issue, because all the long-sufferings needs should be met, no matter what the personal response to the client. However, this could be a lack of perception on the p art of the mental health nurse.Akerjordet and Severinsson (2004) discuss the issue of emotional cognition in nursing, a concept which affects the nurse-patient relationship, particularly within mental health nursing. Salovey and Mayer (1990) define emotional intelligence as the ability to monitor ones own and others feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide ones thinking and actions (p 185). In their qualitative study, Akerjordet and Severinsson (2004) found four dominant themes rough emotional intelligence in mental health nursing relationship with the patient the substance of supervision motivati on and responsibility. This would suggest that emotional intelligence on the part of the nurse is important within mental health nursing. Akerjordet and Severinsson (2004) suggest that emotional intelligence stimulates the search for a deeper understanding of a concernal mental health nursing identity and that emotional learning and maturation processes are central to professional competence, that is, personal growth and development. (p 164). Therefore, the mental health nurse would need to develop the emotional intelligence to understand why they are finding it hard to feel compassion for the client, and to take action to remedy this, and to act in a sensitive and supportive way towards the client, even if they do not truly feel compassionate towards them.Shattell et al (2007) carried out question on the therapeutic relationship within mental health services, and found that clients expressed experiences of the therapeutic relationship under the following themes relate to me, fee l me as a person, and add up to the solution. A therapeutic relationship for persons with mental illness requires in-depth personal knowledge, which is acquired only with time, understanding, and skill. Knowing the whole person, rather than knowing the person only as a service recipient. (Shattell et al, 2007 p 274). This would suggest that the mental health nurse should be motivated to develop an empathy with the client through this knowledge, and should actively engage in quest out ways to know and to understand the client. This may relate back to the issue of emotional intelligence, because the mental health nurse needs to know themselves very well, and to understand themselves and their professional persona (Akerjordet and Severinsson, 2004) before they can then go on to get to know and understand, and empathise with, the client.Hamilton and Roper (2007) discuss the concept of insight, tone at its theoretical underpinnings, and the fact that it is problematic in mental health nursing because it can be difficult to have insight into patients experiences of mental illness. Insight is seen as part of the process of getting to know and understand the client, and from this, developing a knowledge of their mental illness, including diagnosing their particular mental illness (Hamilton and Roper, 2007). However, developing this insight is made difficult by problems such as the perceived difference in author between caregiver and client, and the expectations of patient behaviours (Hamilton and Roper, 2007). This would suggest that the mental health nurse needs to see each patient as an individual, as unique, and to take the time to truly get to know the person and their experience of mental illness. Definitions of mental illness, and labels, can make this harder, for the nurse, and for the client as well, who fears be reduced to his or her disease rather than being seen as a person who is ill (Hamilton and Roper, 2007 Shattell et al, 2007).Research by Shatell et al (2006) emphasises this point. In their study, clients raised a number of issues around being understood by mental health caregivers, and it was this concept of being understood which seemed most important in developing an effective therapeutic relationship. Some of these concepts include feeling important establishing connections, and being on the same level (Shatell et al, 2006). Research by Svedberg et al (2003) found similar results, and in their study the patients described how the feeling of mutuality in the relationship with the nurse was important for the promotion of health processes. Mutuality was achieved by doing things together and by having a dialogue with each other. (p 451). This author feels that these ideals can be correctly achieved by mental health nurses who take time to get to know the client and who develop empathy with the client through focusing attention on them. The patients precious to feel understood in Shatell et als (2006) study. Feeling importan t was a major consequence of being understood. Being understood made patients feel like human beings rather than being treated like a number or being treated like in a factory. Participants treasured to be treated like human beings, not as sick, mentally ill persons like persons, not a set of diagnoses (Shatell et al, 2006 p 237).This could be viewed as a consequence of the compassion and self-awareness of the nurse as a professional, and of their ability to see the client as an individual, to not be prejudiced by anything more or less them, especially not their illness. This is very important. This author believes that compassion and empathy develop through getting to know the client properly, and that these all enhance the therapeutic relationship. Shatell et al (2006) also suggest that clients feel important when they know the nurse has been thinking of them at times other than face to face contact, and this is something to think of for practice, particularly in relation to th e conversations that nurses have with patients. It is also important that mental health nurses develop proper listening skills, which would also allow them to develop compassionate understanding, and support the client in expressing themselves (Freshwater, 2006).Encouraging self-expression is an important part of nurses getting to know their patients, it would seem, but self-expression is not easy for many people. People with mental illness are often negotiating a range of different sense of what constitutes their self (Meehan and Machlachlan, 2008). For example, a professional woman becomes a catch and wife or homemaker when she leaves the office for home. In changing from one self to another type, her multiple self voices renegotiate their hierarchy and positions and create a coherent self story consistent with the role of mother and wife. (Meehan and Machlachlan, 2008). These negotiations can be problematic for the person with mental illness, and this just provides one example of how complex understanding the self can be, which makes self-expression similarly challenging. Yet it would be worthwhile to develop activities and actions which would sup port this.It may be that there are ways that mental health nurses can encourage or support self-expression and the development of caregiver understanding of the client. For example, Raingruber (2004) discusses the use of poetry in child and adolescent mental health, as a means of self-expression, arguing that poetry has the power to allow clients to develop self awareness and to express their feelings. Raingruber (2004) suggests that The complexity, power, and beauty of language within poetry allow the expression of intense human experiences (p 14). While there are drawbacks and limitations to the therapeutic use of poetry, it might be that this offers one class of opportunity for self-expression, on the part of the client, and empathy, on the part of the mental health nurse. When an distinguish moment arise s, poetry should be used to alleviate clinicians, nursing students, and clients become more aware of and open to possibilities. (Raingruber, 2004 p 16). However, this author believes that the mental health nurse would need some skills in this area, or to be someone who is perhaps comfortable with using or writing poetry themselves, if they were to use it to any corking extent with clients.Feen-Calligan et al (2008) make similar assertions about using visual art in supporting mental health users who are substance misusers. Feen Calligan et al (2008) found that As the women learned to verbalize their feelings and reflect on their situations through interpretative interactions with visual art, they gained insight into their feelings and issues they faced in their recovery from chemical dependency. (p 287). This research seems to show that using visual art and image processing allowed the women to fully express their feelings in ways they had not been able to before (Feen-Calligan et al, 2008). Again, some kind of knowledge or skill on the part of the nurse would be necessary. Both of these examples are of liberal arts-related activities, and relate strongly back to the formative assessment and book review. It might be that there is great scope within mental health nursing to encourage self-knowledge, self-expression and mutuality through the use of creative arts and fiction. Certainly this would provide a way for nurses to relate to clients more readily, to be on their level, and to talk in terms and metaphors that they are familiar with.ConclusionIt would seem that underpinning mental health nursing are a number of core values which need to be more explicit in the discourses around the profession and in the practices of those within it. Svedberg et al (2003) stateThe most important goal of nursing care is to promote the subjective experience of health. The health promoting efforts of mental health care nurses must be aimed at creating encounters where the pati ent will be confirmed both existentially and as an individual worthy of dignity. (p 448).The core values of mental health nursing should orientate towards this kind of confirmation of worth on the part of the healthcare provider for the client.Eagger et al (2005) stateOrganisations, too, would benefit from a clear, values-based tilt that staff at all levels can identify with. Institutions encouraging a culture of care can contribute significantly towards creating a healing surround for staff as well as patients. ( p 28).This would be particularly relevant for mental health nursing and mental health services, and might specify and important area for future practice development. Undertaking this exploration has shown to the author the need for self-awareness and emotional intelligence on the part of mental health nurses, as a prerequisite for developing true compassion and empathy. Fostering self-expression amongst mental health services users, providing opportunities for this, and supporting them by paying attention and understanding them, is also important. While some experiences so far might suggest that in certain contexts and situations, this might be difficult to achieve, it should be the goal that we all get to for, and these are core values which should underpin all of our practice.References 214727Akerjordet, K. and Severinsson, E. 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