The Divide between Psych Nurses and Behavioral Health Professionals?

I may have an idea of what you are talking about.

I once worked on an adult in-pt unit where nurses were thought of as pill pushers and people who kept the unit milieu down to a dull roar. And that was it! Any serious interactions with patients (such as talking with a very depressed, suicidal pt) were supposed to be done by the therapists/social workers, as they were deemed to have the proper education to do this. The thought was sometimes even expressed that nurses could do actual harm because they lacked proper education. Nurses could not recommend a book, for instance, until it had been OK'd by a therapist first.

The unit rounding meetings were between the psychiatrists and therapists/social work, and treatment plans made by them. Nurses were not thought to have any important insight, even though nurses were the ones actually with the patients the majority of the time.

Even communication between the groups was a problem. Half the time we learned by accident that a patient was supposed to be working on a specific behavior. As I say, on paper we were part of the treatment team, but in reality they didn't even think of us needing to know something like that.

Now a lot of this was because the lead therapist, who had been there many years, set the tone and made no secret of his distain for nurses. I don't know if there had been a group of "idiot" nurses who ruined it for everyone else, I just know the climate of that unit.

Of course we became "good enough" to deal with patients on the off shifts when the real professionals weren't there!

I apologize if you were thinking of something else, but this is what jumped to my mind when you mentioned a "divide."