The Nurse Of The Future
The student of life and of the sciences which deal with the origin and
development of the human race, and with the relations of man to man and
nation to nation--such sciences as biology and anthropology, sociology
and ethics and history--comes to the conclusion that life exists for the
development of mind. And mind is not merely intellect, but the only
gateway we know to character, to soul. The deepest students of human
mind--man's goal, his ideal. And this visioned perfect mind is one
which adjusts itself without friction to the body, making it fulfil the
laws of health that it may help and not hinder mind's progress; one
which adjusts itself to people and things, co-operating with other minds
to develop manners and customs and laws of the most satisfactory
community living; one 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.
More
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Association Of Ideas
After the first few years of life practically nothing enters consciousness that cannot by some likeness or contrast or kinship be connected with something already there. Were it not for this saving economy memory would be helpless. So the nurse who ... Concentration
How to Study.--You learn sooner or later from experience that the quickest and best way to learn anything new is to give it your undivided attention at the moment; to perceive one thing at a time and to perceive it as something that is definite, or ... 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,... Consciousness In Delirium
At this time of our study it will suffice to say that in delirium and in insanity, which we might very broadly call a prolonged delirium, the toxic brain becomes a house in disorder. The censor is sick, and sequence and coherence are lost as the thr... Consciousness In Sleep
Sleep seldom, if ever, is a condition of utter unconsciousness. We so frequently have at least a vague recollection, when we wake, of dreaming--whether or not we remember the dream material--that we are inclined to accept sleep as always a state of ... Consciousness Is Complex
The one fact we want at this stage of our inquiry is simply this: that consciousness, awaking at birth, very soon becomes complex. However single and simple in content immediate consciousness may be, it is so intimately linked with all preceding exp... Development Of Reason And Will
Later still, when the child is older, we may have somewhat the following mechanism: "Sweets, good, want, taste; spank, hurt; don't care, spank not hurt much, maybe never found put, sweets very good." Now the child is reasoning and choosing between... Disorders And Perversions
Life would be a very simple proposition if the mental machinery always worked right. But this is peculiarly subject to damage both from without and from within. From without it may be damaged by the toxins of food, as in the acute toxic psychoses; b... Emotional Equilibrium
Suppose that when you first enter the ward you are wishing with all your heart you had never decided to become a probationer. Perhaps the white screen and its possible meaning has so frightened you that your thoughts refuse to go beyond it. Suppose ... Environment
While environment may prove the saving grace from poor heredity, it may itself add heavily to the debit side. With the very best of health backgrounds, environment may damage body and mind beyond repair. Under environment we include everything that ... Getting The Other Man's Point Of View
Our points of view are very frequently merely hereditary or acquired prejudices, hence altogether emotional rather than rational. We only with great difficulty see things through another man's eyes. It necessitates comprehending his background fully... Habit Is A Conserver Of Effort
It is always easier to follow a beaten path than to break one's way through untrodden forests. It is easier to walk after we "learn how," and learning how is simply doing it over and over until the legs and feet have acquired habits of motion and ac... Heredity
When we consider the accumulated possibilities for disorder which the family tree of almost any one of us can show, the wonder is not that there are so many nervous or insane, but rather that any come within hailing distance of the normal. For multi... Judgment
The conclusion or decision that reason has reached we call a judgment. The youth who decides against the sweet between meals, we say, has good judgment. And we base our commendation on the proved fact that sweets are real fuel, giving abundantly of ... Memory
No mind retains consciously everything that has ever impressed it. It is necessary that it put aside what ceases to be of importance or value and make way for new impressions. We found early in our study that the subconscious never forgets, but harb... Necessity Of Adaptability
Adaptability is as essential to life of mind as to life of body; and health of mind as well as health of body is determined by the individual ability to adjust himself to environment. There are dreamers who have lived in their ideal world so long ... Normal Emotional Reactions
Some emotions, that seem exaggerated at first thought, may be normal under the circumstances. For no one can know the whole background for emotional response in the life of another. After being long shut up in a darkened room, with bandaged eyes and... Nursing The Deluded Patient
The nurse soon realizes the uselessness of attempting to argue a patient out of his delusions, of trying to convince him that the things he sees and hears and perhaps tastes and feels, are but hallucinations. Her very insistence only fastens his att... One Thought Can Be Replaced By Another
If we control attention we control thought, and with the suggestible patient this principle depends upon the one just now considered. Hope and courage-breeding thoughts can replace despairing and fearful ones, but it will be only when attention is d... Organs Of Consciousness
Nothing is known to us until it has been transmitted to the mind by the senses. The nerves of special sense, of sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch, the temperature sense ("hot or cold" sense), the muscular sense (sense of weight and position), th... Personal Reactions
What will decide whether a human being can resist, successfully, bad tendencies in heredity, or in environment, or in both, and keep a reasonably balanced mind? It demands insight, ambition, will; and if these remain the body can be forced to saving... Psychology And Health
In the use of its functions the mind manifests certain powers and certain modes of expression which can act as powerful allies or as damaging enemies of health. We speak of man as adaptable, but also as a being of habits. We speak of him as "feeli... Reaction Proportioned To Stimuli
In the normal mind the emotional or feeling accompaniment of thought and action is proportionate and adequate to the circumstances, i. e., there is a certain feeling, of a certain strength, natural to every thought and act; and when only that streng... Relation Of Mind And Body
We have found that mind is entirely dependent upon the bodily organs for its existence. Is the body in the same way dependent upon the mind? Can the mind die and the body go on? Given a perfect body with unblocked sense channels, and put the min... Self-correction
Accuracy in work, a primary essential to the nurse, can become automatic if she will demand of herself accuracy of perception, and concentrate on learning and doing until details almost take care of themselves; if she will correct her own work by th... Self-training In Memory
Hand in hand with clear thinking goes reliable memory. But so many of us have it not, and feel its need so strongly that we shall consider for a moment some means of training it. William James holds that brain-paths cannot be deepened; that memory... The Attention Of Interest
Attention naturally follows interest. It can, however, be held by will to the unappealing, with the usual result of transforming it into a thing of interest. One of the laws of the mind we have already stressed is that what we attend to largely d... The Attention Of Reason And Will
So the good nurse will not consider her work done when she has diverted mental processes into channels of co-operation. When the patient, who is capable of reasoning, knows the why of his treatment, and realizes that he can only keep well as he hims... The Beginning Of Reason
We found feeling by far the strongest factor in producing action in babyhood and childhood. Our instinctive doing, we learned, is the result of a race impulse. Will acts chiefly at emotion's bidding. But very early the baby's experience operates as ... The Central And Peripheral Nervous Systems In Action
I am passing the open door of a bake-shop, and a pervading odor fills the air. I think "hot rolls," because my organ of smell--the nose--has received a stimulus which it transmits along my olfactory nerves to the brain; and there the odor is given a... The Cerebrum Or Forebrain
For convenience the various lobes of the cerebrum are known as frontal, temporal, parietal, and occipital, according to the parts of the brain referred to: as forehead, temples, crown, or occiput. The cerebellum, or hind brain, is also divided into ... The Deluded Patient
If the patient's mind is temporarily clouded through infection or suffering, he may be reacting to a delusion, an obsession, a fixed idea of disability, a terrifying fear. Sometimes he persistently refuses food, and gives no reason for it. The unthi... The Mind A Prey To False Associations
Sometimes a nurse reminds a patient of some one in the past who has complicated her life in an unhappy way, so she distrusts or dreads her or is made constantly uncomfortable in her presence. In such a case, if the nurse reports her patient as resis... The Normal Mind
Mind, we found, is born in the form of consciousness when the outside world impresses itself upon the brain-cells by way of the senses. This consciousness, observation and experiment prove, is first a feeling one, later a feeling-thinking-willing ... The Normal Mind
The normal mind reasons clearly with the best data at hand to results that will stand the test of conformity to reality; the normal mind uses reason and feeling, guided by reasonable attitude; in the normal mind reason advises action and will brings... The Normal Mind Instinct
We have found that the mind's chief end is action, of itself, or of its body. But what are its incentives to action? We see the very young baby giving evidences of an emotional life, living in an affective, or feeling environment, leading a pleasu... The Nurse Of The Future
The student of life and of the sciences which deal with the origin and development of the human race, and with the relations of man to man and nation to nation--such sciences as biology and anthropology, sociology and ethics and history--comes to ... 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 miss... The Obsessed Patient
A patient who is suffering from obsessions must carry out certain abnormal actions, or be wretched. She cannot do otherwise. It is as though she were forced by some outside agent, though the forcing is actually from within. When the nurse realizes t... The Place Of Emotion
Feeling Cannot Be Separated from Thinking.--Emotion we found the constant accompaniment of every other mental activity. It is first on the stage of consciousness and, in the normal mind, last to withdraw. When I am working at a problem in doses or... The Power Of Suggestion
One almost universal condition found in illness is hypersuggestability. Here is the nurse's despair and her hope. Suggestion may come from without or from within. When from within, we call it autosuggestion. Many of the sick are temporarily resti... The Psychology Of The Nurse
The mind can be as definitely developed and strengthened as the body. The man who has suffered for years an organic disease will never have the same force as he who has never been seriously ill; but his constitution can be built up and made as eff... The Saving Power Of Will
It is not uncommon to hear a doctor say, "Nothing but his will pulled him through that time." It does not mean quite what it says, for the patient's will would have been helpless to cure him without the medicine and the treatment. But it does mean t... The Sympathetic Nervous System
Associated with the central nervous system by connecting nerves--but located outside of it in various parts of the body--are groups of nerve-cells (gray matter) and their fibers, forming what we call the sympathetic nervous system--the direct connec... 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 consciou... Training Perception
The nurse who demands of herself that she perceive accurately paves the way for accurate, deft service in her profession. There are constant means at hand for training in the art. Suppose you try to get so definite a picture of each ward or room you... Training The Will
There is no better opportunity for will-training than the hospital affords the nurse. The constant necessity of acting against desire, of doing tasks which in themselves cannot be agreeable, calls for a developed will, while it gives it constant exe... Variations From Normal Mental Processes (continued)
Hyperesthesia is abnormal sensitiveness to stimulation. Anesthesia is loss, either temporary or permanent, of any of the senses. Perversion is morbid alteration of function which may occur in emotional, intellectual, or volitional fields. ... What Determines The Point Of View
The point of view of any individual depends upon temperament, present conditions--mental and physical--and the aim of the life. That is, it depends upon his inherited tendencies plus a unique personal something, plus all the facts of his environment... 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 bod...