Abstract
Observation, communication, and recording are three interlocking operations in the nursing process. They are of utmost importance to the outcome of illness for patients and to the further development of the nurse as a person who is professionally interested in improvement in services available to people. In this chapter we are concerned in identifying principles that guide these operations and promise fuller development of clinical nursing science as a force that is useful to a dynamic, changing society. Each nurse can translate principles into action in situations in which she practices.
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Notes
There are, of course, other functions of observation in nursing. We are concerned here with interpersonal phenomena. Students may wish to consult: Bertha Harmer and Virginia Henderson, Textbook of the Principles and Practice of Nursing (New York, The Macmillan Company, 1939) (4th ed.) Ch. 1. Observation of the patient.
Adapted from: Albert M. Frye and Albert W. Levi, Rational Belief (New York, Harcourt, Brace & Company, Inc., 1941), pp. 342–43. A very useful text that can be consulted with profit by students in nursing.
The Western Illinois State College Bulletin, Observation in the Laboratory Schools, Macomb, Illinois, printed by Authority of the State of Illinois, by Western Illinois State College, Vol. 28, No. 3 (January, 1949), p. 37. An excellent summary of principles of observation as they refer to teacher-education institutions; would provide a useful framework for adaptation to patient education and observation.
George A. Lundberg, Social Research (New York, Longmans Green & Company, Inc., 1942), p. 6.
For a full discussion on the nature of hypotheses see: Frye, op. cit., pp. 373–78. See also Lundberg, op. cit., pp. 9–10.
Lundberg, op. cit., pp. 49–50.
Alfred L. Baldwin, Joan Kalhorn, and Fay Huffman Bresse, Patterns of Parent Behavior, Psychological Monographs, Vol. 58, No. 3 (Evanston, Illinois, American Psychological Association, Northwestern University).
Patrick Mullahy, A Study of Interpersonal Relations (New York, Hermitage House, Inc., 1949), pp. 309–63.
S. R. Slavson, “Types of Relationship and Their Application to Psychotherapy,” American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, Vol. XV, No. 2 (April, 1945), pp. 267–77.
Mullahy, op. cit., pp. 309–63.
Ibid., p. 324.
See also: John Dollard, Criteria for the Life History (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1938), p. 8.
Roger Barker, Beatrice A. Wright and Mollie R. Gonick, Adjustment to Physical Handicap and Illness: A Survey of the Social Psychology of Physique and Disability, Bulletin 55, 1946 (230 Park Avenue, New York, Social Science Research Council).
Mullahy, op. cit., p. 338. See also Harold D. Lasswell, “Intensive and Extensive Methods of Observing the Personality-Culture Manifold,” Yenching Journal of Social Studies (1938), 1:74–76.
See: Frederick C. Redlich, John Dollard and Richard Newman, “High Fidelity Recordings of Psychotherapeutic Interviews,” American Journal of Psychiatry (July, 1950), 107:42–48.
Mullahy, op. cit., pp. 337–38, 342–43.
P. M. Symonds, “Role Playing as a Diagnostic Procedure in the Selection of Leaders,” Sociatry (1947), 1:43–52.
For a list of processes studied by psychoanalysts see: H. S. Sullivan, Conceptions of Modern Psychiatry (Washington, D.C., William Alanson White Psychiatric Foundation, 1947), pp. 46–48.
H. S. Sullivan, “Tensions Interpersonal and International: A Psychiatrist’s View,” p. 83. Paper in Hadley Cantril (ed.), Tensions That Cause Wars (Urbana, University of Illinois Press, 1950).
Clifford Woody (general ed.), The Discipline of Practical Judgment in a Democratic Society, Yearbook No. 28, of the National Society of College Teachers of Education (Chicago, Ill., University of Chicago Press), 1943. See also: S. E. Asch, “Studies in the Principles of Judgments and Attitudes: II Determination of Judgments by Group and by Ego Standards,” Journal of Social Psychology (1940), 12:433–445.
C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards. The Meaning of Meaning (New York, Harcourt, Brace & Company, Inc., 1945). Word consciousness as the definition of semantics.
P. W. Bridgman, The Logic of Modern Physics (New York, The Macmillan Company, 1927), pp. 5–7, “… the concept is synonymous with the corresponding set of operations.”
For a useful reference on the use and meaning of symbols see: Frye, op. cit.
In this connection the nondirective method of counseling is noteworthy. See: Carl Rogers, Counseling and Psychotherapy (Boston, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1942). Virginia Axeline, Play Therapy (Boston, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1947).
Suzanne K. Langer, Philosophy in a New Key (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1942), p. 280.
Ibid., pp. 282–83.
For a particularly helpful discussion see: Flanders Dunbar, Your Child’s Mind and Body (New York, Random House, Inc., 1949), p. 188.
Erich Fromm, Man for Himself (New York, Rinehart & Co., Inc., 1947), This valuable contribution to the understanding of the formation of character and its relations to behavior provides many leads for nurses who want to understand themselves and their patients.
J. Louise Despert, “Psychosomatic Study of Fifty Stuttering Children,” American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, Vol. XVI, No. 1 (January, 1946), pp. 100–32. See particularly a series of fables used to test “sensitive areas” in family and emotional life. Erich Fromm, The Forgotten Language (New York, Rinehart & Co., Inc., 1951).
Erich Fromm, The Forgotten Language (New York, Rinehart & Co., Inc., 1951). Ch. II, pp. 11–23.
Symonds, op. cit., p. 472.
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© 1988 Hildegard E. Peplau
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Peplau, H.E. (1988). Observation, Communication, and Recording. In: Interpersonal Relations in Nursing. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-10109-2_12
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-10109-2_12
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