Help with mental health clinical

[Jrhemming]

I just started my mental health class and clinical last week and I am lost. I have no idea what I am supposed to do in the clinical setting. Sure you pass meds but what else do you do during the day? The instructor keeps talking about therapeutic talk. Is it mostly talking with the patients? What about assessment? It all seems very foreign to me and not very cut and dry. Any tips would be appreciated

[sirI, MSN, APRN, NP]

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[elkpark]

I can't speak for your instructor, obviously, but in my experience teaching psych clinicals in a few different schools (both ADN and BSN programs), the students do not pass meds in psych clinical. As you note, the emphasis in psych clinical in most schools is developing and honing your therapeutic communication skills. If you have not already talked about therapeutic communication in your nursing program, I'm sure you will be soon.

In my experience teaching psych clinicals, students attend morning report, attend group therapy and various activity groups with the clients, may have the opportunity to sit in on their assigned clients' meeting with the psychiatrist, and talk with their assigned clients and other clients on the unit, and participate in casual activities on the unit like working a jigsaw puzzle or playing cards with clients. You talk with clients as part of your nursing assessment, to learn more about the lived experience of various psychiatric disorders, and to work on your communication skills.

Students often find psych clinical frustrating because it's not at all like the med-surg clinicals they are used to. There is very little of the skills/tasks/procedures they are familiar with (and that students tend to see as what nursing is "about"), and that can be unsettling for many students. Some students expect that, because the clinical seems to be "sitting around talking" (as I've heard it described by students many times, dismissively), it will be an easy break from the clinicals they are used to, but I've had numerous students (who started out thinking that way) say to me, once they were well into the rotation, "I thought this rotation was going to be easy, but psych is really hard! You have to think hard all the time!" (And that's true -- in order to be any good at psych, as a student or as a practicing nurse, you do have to "think hard all the time" :)).

If it's any reassurance, in my experience, most students start out feeling the same concerns and apprehension that you note above, but end up having a reasonably good experience. Like most clinical experiences in school, what you get out of it will largely be a function of what you put into it. Best wishes!

[Qteapi]

You will learn what the saying..."there is no health without mental health" means for sure....love this field! Just watch your back....hehehehehe and you will be fine!

[RatchedAfterMidnight, MSN, APRN]

In addition to practicing therapeutic communication, sit back and watch the nurse/mental health technician manage the milieu. You can learn a lot by going through charts and listening to report, but watching the staff redirect patients and learning early clues of when a patient is escalating is an art. Psych nurses have to be consistent and maintain appropriate boundaries at all times and it is much harder than it looks!

[NurseGirl525, ASN, RN]

We did not pass meds. We went to group therapies and worked on therapeutic communication skills. We also went to an addiction center. Basically you learn about dealing with the mentally ill.

[MrChicagoRN, RN]

"Hi, my name is --------. How are you doing today?"

and you build from there.....