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??
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3 comments:
Gisli,
I too find myself unintentionally pathologizing my family and friends. I often wonder if my knowledge is a curse at times. Every human being on earth has certain traits and characteristics that can be pathological if taken to the extreme, but assessing each person on the basis of these "traits" is wrong. Taking off the mask of our profession is important, especially when dealing with our loved ones. The knowledge we possess is wonderful and awful at the same time. It can help us deal effectively in certain circumstances and make us a little paranoid in others. It can, as you have mentioned, give us an excuse for our own behavior, while making others the "one with the problem". Looking holistically at a person is the nursing way and can be the framework and the foundation from which we all practice and live our lives.
I have really burnt myself trying to be psychotherapist to my family - especially in the beginning when I was really clumsy with it - now I'm only kind of clumsy with it. I have felt that same excitement that all the unruly behavior around me could suddenly be explained by psychiatric theory - and I think it must be pretty normal to go through that phase, especially when it is all so new, and we are so committed to embodying it, and using ourselves and agents of healing and change.
But you're right - it's not always welcome, and over time I have found a comfortable sense for when I might share an opinion that is colored by my training in mental health, and when I keep it to myself.
And I think you're also right that it is most useful in managing ourselves, because when I do that I am mot able to affect positive growth in myself and those around me - whether I am stating my clinical opinions out loud or not...
Keynan
I guess another dimension of this penomenon is knowing when people are behaving "abnormally", whatever that means.
This business is so strange, doing assessment of human beings, deciding, or at least approximating what is normal and what is not.
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