You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
Teaching of Psychiatry to nurses presents many difficulties. The limited time allotted to the course challenges the instructors' ingenuity in the selection of material and in the adequate presentation of the subjects selected. The interest of the nurses in the general subject varies a great deal. While some nurses consider Psychiatry just another course others sense its broader significance and are dissatisfied with superficial outlines.
The authors have set for themselves a high goal. They aimed 'to treat the nurse as a mature, responsible person, —to inculcate in the nurse 'an intelligent and informed attitude toward mental illness and its role in the production of and the complication of organic diaease'. They have well succeeded in their efforts. The sections dealing with general psychiatric problems stress and develop the dynamic approach. Psycho-analytic thinking and orientation are very well represented. The general high tone of the book bids one to be lenient with such loose remarks as 'gross lesions of entire body as compulsion neurosis or psychosis'.
The authors have introduced some changes in classification which may be confusing to the young students in their collateral reading or in discussion of cases.
The authors do not wish the nurse to be a psychotherapist