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
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PSYCHOLOGY FOR NURSES ***

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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