To type or not to type: that is the question

What I mean by this cryptic statement is wether one should be typing/documenting elctronically while seeing patients.

This becomes especially important if doing psychotherapy, or supportive therapy, which I think we psych nurses are doing, knowingly or not, through out most of our day.

Do we give our clients our full attention "multitasking" like that? Keeping our eyes on the keyboard, not on our clients, creating distracting movements and sounds. Can we truly be there for our clients typing/documenting at the same time? I know it is really hard for me to be fully present for my clients while typing. That is why I don't. But of course I have the luxury of being a student with time to document I would not normally have.

I wonder if I will feel the same way when I start to work this summer. Perhaps I will learn to be present for the client and document. Perhaps time constraints will give me little choice.

Some of the clinicians I respect the most do document while in the "session" so it can't be all bad?

I know when working as a staff nurse, wether it was outpatient, inpatient or home care I mostly kept client encounters seperate from documenting.

We will find out soon how my ideals fare in the "real world"...

I wonder how others deal with this issue or plan to deal with it??

The mask of the mental health professional

My wife does not like it at all when I go all “psych” on her so I have a strong motivation to put this mask away at home, since she is a passionate woman... This mask is, I believe, a common defensive mechanism for us working in this field. I tend to want to pathologize my environment when it “does not behave” and over-intellectualize behavior that upsets me. This of course can be at times extremely useful, but also sometimes a blatant misuse of my professional authority and knowledge. My professional and educational preparation can thus become a weapon of sorts, an instrument of harm that I use against the people around me. Normalizing my own behavior in an authoritative manner and pathologizing theirs.

I feel myself often resisting the urge of labeling friends and family thus and having to really focus to remember who they are, holistically speaking. The same is true for many of my patients also, when I think about it.

I do feel that my psych preparation and experience often is helpful in my personal life, but in a more unofficial and informal capacity.

Mainly I feel that it gives me insight, especially to deal with me. After all, I am my biggest problem.

So it begins....

My name is Gisli ("Gees-lee") Kort Kristofersson and I am in the Psych mental health Clinical Nurse Specialist program at the University of Minnesota. I am married and have a 5 year old son and a 6 month old daughter.My wife is also doing a graduate degree here at the “U” in educational psychology.

My main areas of interest are community mental health, spirituality and mental health and culturally competent mental health care.We came from Iceland in July of 2006, sold everything we had and got on a plane. It has been a fun and humbling experience so far.

My hobbies, if anybody cares, include riding my bike, arty-farty cinema, playing basketball, reading books (From fantasy to Faust), mountain hiking and hanging out with my kids and wife.

But I am especially interested in “all things psych”. This is the reason why I agreed to do this blog. I was asked to since I was one of the Jansen Scholars that went to the last APNA annual conference in Florida, October 2007, and APNA was looking for a voice of a young psychiatric nurse to speak out here.

I will be posting on this site until the next APNA annual conference, which will be held this coming October here in Minnesota, about two –four times a week. Sometimes short, sometimes long, but always on psych related issues.

I am hoping those reading this will comment frequently so we can create some live discussions about the various topics we nurses face in the mental health field.

One of the biggest liabilities of nurses as whole is our tendency to keep silent on the public level. My hope is that this will be a venue for us to practice speaking out. Letting go of the fears and cute little complexes that prevent us from expressing our views and perspectives to the public at large.

And it is my strong believe that we do have a perspective that must be recognized, if this system is ever going to improve.

I welcome comments from all, students and veterans alike. I hope I will be able to provide you with some insights in the months to come, but even more, I look forward to learn from you.