PSYCHOLOGY FOR NURSES

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXVI, 30 November 1933, Page 10

PSYCHOLOGY FOR NURSES

TREMENDOUS POWER in a post-graduate lecture for nurses Professor T. ft. Pear, professor of psychology at the University .of’ Manchester, said it had been discovered about 30 years ago that one could not account for tlie mind entirely in forms of what one was conscious, of at the moment, just as one could not account entirely for the iceberg by the relatively small part of it that appeared above water. The psycho-analysts were the first people, to make us realise that tho relalionsmps between any two persons were often linked up with something i.liat lav behind the circumstances, of lire moment. The patient who was ill was likely to regress and become rather like a child We ell regressed occasionally Were we not apt when disturbed in mind to go to .someone who would reassure un? Was not that rather like running under our mother’s apron ! Nurses were often dealing with a grown-up person, who was a. regress. This gave the nurse great powers over flic grown up which she must not abuse. The young unite might not know exactly what had happened, and she; had; to realise that in tier attitude to a patient she must be careful. The power which the 'nurse thus possessed, was tremendous. Every psycho-therapist knew that nurses had therefore to be actresses to some extent. Moreover., the attitude adopted toward one kind of patient might be beneficial, but to an other kind absolutely poisonous. For that reason a .uurs:* would be better- fee some knowledge of psychology.-