A History of Mental Health Nursing

by PeterNolan (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  1992

  $10.62

  An understanding of the historical roots of the present is the springboard for a more enlightened tomorrow. This is the story of the rapid development of psychiatric nursing. The author's research, observations and interviews have resulted in a revealing tapestry of life, contrasting the distress of the many people who experience mental health problems with the pioneering efforts of those who try to provide relief. Psychiatric nursing is traced from the role of Keeper to Mental Health Nurse . The language of psychiatry includes lunacy, workhouses, asylums, moral defection, attendants and mental nursing, through to the current emphasis on community mental health care. The author observes the speed with which new ideas have been absorbed into clinical practice - and the equal speed with which they became and do become outdated and discredited. The implication is that society has still a long way to go in both the understanding and the response to the problems of life that have been observed and documented since man began to contemplate and write.