Chapter 2: Relevant Theories and Therapies for Nursing Practice

Chapter 2 Relevant Theories and Therapies for Nursing Practice 1

Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theory • Belief: Source of Mental illness related to unresolved issues that originated in childhood • Levels Of Awareness ✓ Conscious ✓ Preconscious ✓ Unconscious Erik Erikson’s Ego Theory • Belief: Culture and Society Exert Significant Influence on Personality • Eight predetermined and consecutive life stages • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGFKAfixHJs • Evolution of Theories for Psychiatric Disorders Harry Stack Sullivan’s Interpersonal Theory • Belief: personality can be observed within interpersonal relationships • Purpose of all behavior is to get needs met through interpersonal interactions and to decrease or avoid anxiety 2

Peplau was the first nurse to identify psychiatric mental health nursing both as an essential element of general nursing and as a specialty area Nurses are both participants and observers in therapeutic conversations Promoted interventions to lower anxiety, with the aim of improving patients’ abilities to think and function at more satisfactory levels Hildegard Peplau’s Theory 3

Ivan Pavlov’s Classical Conditioning Theory 4

Personality traits and responses — adaptive and maladaptive — were socially learned through classical conditioning Watson concluded that controlling the environment could mold behavior and that anyone could be trained to be anything, from a beggar man to a merchant John B. Watson’s Behaviorism Theory 5

B.F. Skinner’s Operant Conditioning Theory Voluntary behaviors are learned through consequences, and behavioral responses are elicited through reinforcement These Behavioral methods are particularly effective with children, adolescents, and individuals with many forms of chronic mental illness. 6

Provides another person to model the behaviors, or presents a video for the purpose. Uses positive reinforcement to increase desired behaviors Development of behavior tasks customized to the patient’s specific fears • Anxiety or fear becomes associated with the once-pleasurable stimulus • Punishment • Avoidance training Behavior Therapy Modeling Operant conditioning Systematic desensitization Aversion therapy 7

These theorists believe that thoughts come before feelings and actions Cognitive Theories and Therapies Cognitive theorists proposed that there is a dynamic interplay between individuals and the environment Beck’s method 8

Humanistic theories focus on human potential and free will to choose life patterns that are supportive of personal growth Maslow contended that the focus of psychology must go beyond experiences of hate, pain, misery, guilt, and conflict to include love, compassion, happiness, exhilaration, and well-being Humanistic Theory Abraham Maslow’s humanistic psychology theory 9