Abstract
When an individual is sick he is dependent upon others for information and care that will aid in the solution of his medical problem. The way in which he responds to the necessity of asking for and of receiving help from others depends in large measure on how he feels about himself in a situation in which he is dependent. Feelings of dependence develop very early in life, during the mother and child relationship, and are often carried forward into adulthood with little change as a result of many intervening experiences. Some individuals are able to modify adaptations and expand what is learned early in life. Nurses come into contact with people who have revised their feelings about getting help from others and those who have not. Being able to see relationships between early childhood experiences and adult behavior and between the infant’s complete helplessness and that seen in comatose patients aids a nurse to make discriminations in offering care and in developing with patients experiences that will afford further personality development. The purpose of this chapter is to clarify these relationships and to identify what is involved when patients and nurses are faced with the task of learning to count on others for help.
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Notes
Harold Rugg, Foundations for American Education (New York, World Book Company, 1947), p. 169. A useful summarizing discussion of the “psychology of personality” is given on pages 169–205.
H. S. Sullivan, The Meaning of Anxiety in Psychiatry and in Life (Washington, D.C., William Alanson White Psychiatric Foundation), pamphlet, p. 50.
P. S. Schilles, Psychology at Work (New York, Whittlesey House, 1932), paper by Mark May, “The Foundations of Personality,” pp. 81–101.
J. McV. Hunt (ed.), Personality and the Behavior Disorders (New York, The Ronald Cross Company, 1944), Vol. I, Ch. 2, Edwin R. Guthrie, “Personality in terms of associative learning.”
J. B. Watson, The New Behaviorism (New York, W. W. Norton & Company, 1930), p. 304.
Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom (New York, Farrar & Rinehart, Inc., 1941), p. 278.
Robert J. Havighurst, Developmental Tasks and Education (Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 1948), pamphlet.
Sigmund Freud, Basic Writings (New York, Random House, Inc., Modern Library Edition, 1938). See also: O. Spurgeon English and Gerald H. J., Pearson, Common Neuroses of Children and Adults (New York, W. W. Norton & Company, 1937), especially pp. 1–83.
J. D. Brown, Psychodynamics of Abnormal Behavior (New York, McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1940), sec. III, pp. 162–68.
A fuller knowledge of all that is involved in this experience is well documented in: Benjamin Spock and Mabel Huschka, The Psychological Aspects of Pediatric Practice, reprinted by courtesy of Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc., and made available through the New York State Committee on Mental Hygiene of the State Charities Aid Association, 1938, uses the terms “positive groping” and “negative withdrawal” in a very helpful discussion of infant behavior patterns. H. S. Sullivan, Conceptions of Modern Psychiatry (Washington, D.C., William Alanson White Psychiatric Foundation, 1947), pp. 14–42 for a discussion of the evolution of personality in infancy. Hunt, op. cit., pp. 621–51, paper by Margaret A. Ribble, “Infantile experience in relation to personality development.”
Fromm, op. cit., pp. 22–23.
Ibid
Karen Horney, New Ways in Psychoanalysis (New York, W. W. Norton & Company, 1939), pp. 74–75. Defines “basic anxiety” as an outcome of these experiences.
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© 1988 Hildegard E. Peplau
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Peplau, H.E. (1988). Learning to Count on Others. In: Interpersonal Relations in Nursing. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-10109-2_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-10109-2_8
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