amandapmct

I think the "why not" is best summed up as "dual relationship." Someone below said "remove the patient from the context and it's not illegal or unethical..." but you simply can't. Once they are your pt. they are always your pt., partly because they could become your pt. again. If you saw her at the mall and she approached you, it is difficult for you to anticipate how she would feel if you asked her how she was doing; you were around for a very difficult time and she may not wish to get into all that, or even be reminded of it - even if you were important to her, too. I think this is the best reason to hold very strong boundaries; we simply don't know how the pt. feels about us, about their time in the hospital, or about how their seeing us and talking with us could affect them. I have talked with people about this in nursing and in mental health and my philosophy is that we can always hold a special pt. in our hearts and memories. But we have to hold them very, very loosely. Remember them, wish the best for them, but not pursue or attempt contact at all. They will be okay without us and can live their life without knowing how much they affected us. I completely understand your feelings but I do think really firm boundaries are important.

1) Start a focussed discussion on "what has helped you stay calm in the past when you felt angry but did not react to those feelings?" Open that up for discussion and write down people's answers on a white board or poster board. Keep the focus on what has worked in the past, rather than war stories or what hasn't worked. It helps people to remind themselves they have had past successes. 2) Teach relaxation techniques - always helpful. Don't feel like it's corny to play relaxing music and teach them how to relax, moving slowly from their toes, all the way up to their scalp, one part at a time. It may feel corny at first, but people love this! Speak slowly, soothingly. Read up on relaxation techniques on Google - there will be lots of helpful information. 3) You may also want to google Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, which teaches people how to manage their feelings more effectively, and there will be lots of helpful tips there, as well. (If you can't find anything, do some academic research on DBT. There's tons of stuff out there on that.) 4) Since you have an hour, you could also briefly introduce some yoga poses along with meditation and suggest they do that for 20 minutes every day. 5) As you can see, I'm suggesting offering many different ways to calm anger and aggression, and suggesting they do it proactively - not every suggestion will work for everyone, so I think it's good to give several options, and many of these are interactive. Hope that helps!

I completely agree with Ranka. I think you should meet with the dean and also write a response to the write-up, including a copy of the syllabus. Why didn't the head instructor intervene? This is clearly not something you did wrong or should be written up for.

Another thought is, if you live really conservatively for a few years, you could conceivably pay your loans back quickly. It would be a psychological challenge, I'm sure, but could certainly be done; if you're making $60,000, let's say, you chooose to live as though you made $40,000, and send $1500 a month (or even more) to your loan and pay it down quickly. Even if you only pay down half in 5 years, and then just make the regular payments for the remainder of the time, you'll be in a good place financially re: debt. The other thing is, I have grad school loans (psychology field) to the tune of $40k and it really doesn't upset my life that much. I consolidated and pay $215 per month (albeit for a looooooooong time) and I don't really mind. It does affect my debt/income ratio, but I've always been able to qualify for a car or home loan because I have good credit due to paying on time and all that. Just my two cents.

I am glad to hear this because I also work (not quite full-time) and have a family and I'm starting nursing school in September; I keep hearing it's barely possible with all those obligations and yet I don't have much choice. I'm also pretty determined and feel in my gut that I'll be okay - but it's good to hear you say you're doing it. I also have summer off (next summer) and I'm sure I'll use it to recharge as well. Good luck to you!

Try The Gift of Therapy by Irvin Yalom

I am a master's level mental health therapist and am in the process of applying to nursing programs. I am not sure if I will go to an ARNP program (there's a nursing immersion program where non-nurses with a Bachelor's degree can get a Master's in nursing) or do an AA program first and slowly work toward a graduate degree in nursing. I eventually want to be a psychiatric ARNP. I sometimes wish I had gone into nursing first, but I have always wanted to be a mental health therapist, so that's the route I went. Unfortunately, AA level nurses make more money than master's level therapists (at least in the Pacific NW where I live) so I want to combine disciplines and be a psych nurse. Hopefully master's level.

I'm excited to hear that you have an MSW and RN. I have my MA in psychology and am hoping to start the RN program next fall. Did you find that your MSW was valued by employers, even when you had little nursing experience?

Positive symptoms = presence of odd behaviors - hallucinations, delusions Negative symptoms = absence of behaviors that should be there; desire to interact, engage in hygiene, etc. Very simplified, but maybe a way to remember the distinction between positive and negative symptoms

Although drugs can exacerbate psychotic illnesses and also cause "psychosis" it is not necessarily a cause of schizophrenia - and general consensus (sort of) is that there must be a genetic predisposition to get schizophrenia.0 Schizophrenia can't even be diagnosed until there have been a whole range of symptoms for some time - either six months or a year, I can't remember.

I am wondering if and how people prepared for the TEAS. I would probably fail 8th grade math and science if I took a test tomorrow! I need to brush up on basic math and science skills. Any advice on test prep materials or manuals?