Determinants of the nurse-patient relationship revisited

Rather than speaking broadly about the determinants of the nurse-patient relationship, as I did in my book, in this article I have focused more narrowly on psychiatric mental health nurses and their patients. I cited, as the chief influence on the context of the relationship between the two, the psychological changes concomitant with the stellar transition from the Piscean to the Aquarian Age and the burdens these changes impose on the psyche of the individual. I talked a bit about the paradoxical nature of the psyche and how it relates to paradoxical psychotherapeutic approaches. I mentioned win, win negotiations as being skills necessary for coping in the Aquarian Age. I also mentioned that our own value system, although absolute for us, is not necessarily binding on the other unless it is mutually agreed upon beforehand. In addition, I spoke about the possibility of many theories and methods, each equally valid and workable in the solution of a particular problem. I said our approach to the patient will depend on our role conception as psychotherapist, our typology, and concomitant with that, our model of psychological processes and the theoretical framework in which it is couched. I have stated what I consider the four key points for all of us to be aware of in order to negotiate the new psychology. We need to differentiate between needs, wants, and entitlement: we are entitled to our needs, but we are ultimately responsible for their fulfillment (which does not necessarily mean that we have to fulfill them ourselves). We need to be aware of the two-pronged aspect of every bit of communication; i.e., the simultaneous factual and directional message contained in each, and yet the selectivity of the tuning in by the receiver. We also need to be aware that any communication can imply a message about the object discussed or about one's subjective relation to it, as well as the confusion and rage that can be caused by ambiguities and the misunderstanding of which of the two has been meant. We have to learn to live with the fact that all of us have one area of our personality that is reasonably well adapted and another one that is still young and needs all our (and others') help that it can get.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)