Applied Psychology for Nurses

Psychology for Nurses, by Mary F. Porter

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Title: Applied Psychology for Nurses
Author: Mary F. Porter
Release Date: July 16, 2006 [EBook #18843]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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Transcriber's Note: Italics have been rendered using underscores and bold using =equals signs=. A number of printer's errors have been corrected, and are listed at the end.
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+----------------------------------------------------------+ | | | Applied Psychology | | | | for Nurses | | | | | | By | | | | Mary F. Porter, A. B. | | | | Graduate Nurse; Teacher of Applied Psychology, | | Highland Hospital, Asheville, N. C. | | | | | | | | | | | | Philadelphia and London | | W. B. Saunders Company | | 1921 | | | | | +----------------------------------------------------------+
Copyright, 1921, by W. B. Saunders Company

PRINTED IN AMERICA PRESS OF W. B. SAUNDERS COMPANY PHILADELPHIA

TO THE MEMORY OF MY FATHER

FOREWORD
This little book is the outgrowth of a conviction, strengthened by some years of experience with hundreds of supposedly normal young people in schools and colleges, confirmed by my years of training in a neurological hospital and months of work in a big city general hospital, that it is of little value to help some people back to physical health if they are to carry with them through a prolonged life the miseries of a sick attitude. As nurses I believe it is our privilege and our duty to work for health of body and health of mind as inseparable. Experience has proved that too often the physically ill patient (hitherto nervously well) returns from hospital care addicted to the illness-accepting attitude for which the nurse must be held responsible.
I conceive of it as possible that every well trained nurse in our country shall consider it an essential to her professional success to leave her patient imbued with the will to health and better equipped to attain it because the sick attitude has been averted, or if already present, has been treated as really and intelligently as the sick body. To this end I have dealt with the simple principles of psychology only as the nurse can immediately apply them.
The writer wishes to acknowledge her indebtedness for criticism of this work and for several definitions better than her own, in the chapters The Normal Mind and Variations From Normal Mental Processes, to Dr. Robert S. Carroll, who through the years of hospital training helped her to translate her collegiate psychology from fascinating abstract principles into the sustaining bread of daily life.
MARY F. PORTER.
ASHEVILLE, N. C., August, 1921.

CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER I
WHAT IS PSYCHOLOGY? 11
CHAPTER II
CONSCIOUSNESS 20 The Unconscious 23 Consciousness is Complex 29 Consciousness in Sleep 31 Consciousness in Delirium 32
CHAPTER III
ORGANS OF CONSCIOUSNESS 34 The Central and Peripheral Nervous Systems in Action 35 The Sympathetic Nervous System 37
CHAPTER IV
RELATION OF MIND AND BODY 40 The Cerebrum or Forebrain 43
CHAPTER V
THE NORMAL MIND 47
CHAPTER VI
THE NORMAL MIND (Continued) 59 Instinct 59 Memory 62 The Place of Emotion 67 The Beginning of Reason 69 Development of Reason and Will 71 Judgment 72 Reaction Proportioned to Stimuli 75 Normal Emotional Reactions 77 The Normal Mind 77
CHAPTER VII
PSYCHOLOGY AND HEALTH 79 Necessity of Adaptability 80 The Power of Suggestion 84 One Thought Can Be Replaced by Another 89 Habit is a Conserver of Effort 90 The Saving Power of Will 93
CHAPTER VIII
VARIATIONS FROM NORMAL MENTAL PROCESSES 95 Disorders and Perversions 95
CHAPTER IX
VARIATIONS FROM NORMAL MENTAL PROCESSES (Continued) 101 Factors Causing Variations from Normal Mental Processes 108 Heredity 108 Environment 109 Personal Reactions 110
CHAPTER X
ATTENTION THE ROOT OF DISEASE OR HEALTH ATTITUDE 112 The Attention of Interest 112 The Attention of Reason and Will 118
CHAPTER XI
GETTING THE PATIENT'S POINT OF VIEW 124 What Determines the Point of View 124 Getting the Other Man's Point of View 126 The Deluded Patient 133 Nursing the Deluded Patient 135 The Obsessed Patient 136 The Mind a Prey to False Associations 137
CHAPTER XII
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE NURSE 139 Accuracy of Perception 141 Training Perception 142 Association of Ideas 143 Concentration 146 Self-training in Memory 150
CHAPTER XIII
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE NURSE (Continued) 152 Emotional Equilibrium 152 Self-correction 160 Training the Will 161
CHAPTER XIV
THE NURSE OF THE FUTURE 164
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INDEX 169

Applied Psychology for Nurses
CHAPTER I
WHAT IS PSYCHOLOGY?
Wise men study the sciences which deal with the origins and development of animal life, with the structure of the