Pursuing a career in the nursing field can bring you to all sorts of places. It includes having the technical expertise to handle patients with their mental health.
Among these options, psychotherapy nursing is a practice through therapy sessions and medication. But what exactly are your responsibilities with this role?
Here’s a quick overview of the basics of psychotherapy nursing to guide you through!
What is Psychotherapy About?
Generally, psychotherapy is known as talk therapy. It refers to helping individuals change their behaviors, thoughts, and emotions. These are often psychological disorders and other forms of mental distress.
Evidence argues that an individual is likely to go through stress when they hold back their thoughts and emotions. So, simply talking it out is one step closer to bettering mental health.
You can use different forms of strategies and techniques. The key is to develop a therapeutic relationship with the patient, wherein they can communicate with ease and work towards overcoming problematic thoughts and behaviors.
These techniques include the following:
- Behavioral Therapy: The idea of this strategy is to potentially help with individuals behaviors that can be considered self-destructive or unhealthy.
- Cognitive Therapy: This therapy mainly focuses on how thoughts can affect well-being. So, it usually involves identifying cognitive concerns that cause this thinking and replacing them with more positive and realistic thoughts.
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: This approach is a mix of behavioral and cognitive therapy, wherein treatments are made to help a patient understand how thoughts and feelings can influence their behavior.
- Humanistic Therapy: Humanistic therapy looks into helping individuals recognize the importance of self-actualization and free will. This way, they can maximize their skills and potential.
- Psychoanalytic Therapy: A psychoanalytic approach to therapy takes a deeper look into how a person thinks. It considers past experiences and how they relate to unconscious thoughts, memories, and feelings, as well as how they influence behavior.
What Can You Do as a Psychotherapist Nurse?
As a mental health nurse, you can have similar duties as a psychiatrist but on a different range and depth. Moreover, you can work in various settings, such as hospitals and correctional facilities, and with other practitioners who oversee the progress and actions needed for each patient.
Some of those responsibilities are as follows:
- Meet with patients to evaluate and discuss concerns
- Manage appointments with each patient
- Encourage patients to answer questions during consultations
- Determine and prescribe medication according to patient conditions
- Observe and record patient details
- Inform and advise family members about the patient
- Schedule therapy sessions according to patient needs
- Collaborate with other professionals in the field
- Provide educational resources for patients about their case
Keep in mind that the patients you can encounter can vary. It’s important to be wary of patient background to understand their case best and find a fitting solution to their concerns.
Skills Required in Psychotherapy Nursing
Having the appropriate skills plays a big role in your expertise as a psychotherapist nurse. It’s one way you can improve your performance and potentially boost your earnings.
Compared to other nursing roles, the skills you use in psychotherapy nursing differ based on the patient’s needs. So, it helps to ensure you have a general idea of the necessary qualities. These include the following:
Collaboration
A psychotherapist nurse needs to understand how to work with other people, from individuals of different backgrounds to other medical professionals. It allows them to ensure they provide patients with the right levels of care necessary for their case.
At the same time, knowing how to collaborate can help maintain smooth processes throughout the treatment.
Patience
When you work in mental health care, patience is one of the most important skills to have. With this, you can ensure you give every patient the care and respect they need.
Aside from remaining calm and composed, it’s about learning how to match your patient’s pace. It means being able to address slow progress or potential back-slides without feelings of frustration along the way.
Empathy
Being a nurse for mental health means connecting with your patients on a deeper level. This way, you can get a better idea and understanding of what they’re going through and how it feels to them. This is where empathy comes into play.
Practicing empathy lets you build a better relationship with your patient. So, they are likely to trust you more and open up to letting you help them heal.
Additionally, it can improve your social skills in the workplace. With this, you can approach problems with more care and efficiency.
Critical Thinking
It’s good to have good critical thinking skills when you work in mental health care. It improves how you assess situations, identify problems, and provide solutions.
In psychotherapy nursing, this affects how you diagnose your patients and determine the impacts of their symptoms and concerns on their lives.
Critical thinking skills also include the way you observe and analyze your patient – as well as how you draw conclusions and take action during each session.
Communication Skills
General communication skills are the key to effective psychotherapy. After all, the practice mainly focuses on discussing with the patient to find the best solutions to their concerns. But aside from knowing how to communicate with care, it also considers how you listen.
Being an active listener is vital in psychotherapy nursing since it helps you make clear observations and lets your patient know you’re listening. It can include knowing how to give visual or verbal cues or showing expressions.
Active listening is one way you can build rapport with your patient, which later becomes the foundation of your connection.
General Proficiency
It’s important to know the general skills of being a nurse, from how to care for a patient to how to handle their information. It includes knowing who to contact for specific concerns beyond your expertise, how to operate computers and related devices, and what tests to provide based on different needs.
In Summary
The practice of psychotherapy nursing is all about treating patients with different mental health concerns, mainly through talking. Through this, you can help them address these issues and look into better habits to reduce adverse impacts.
If this feels like your calling, join the Total Nurses Network team to start your journey of helping people work towards a positive life.
