Person-Centered Mental Health Nursing Practice: Understanding Lived Experiences of Mental Disorder

This article discusses how understanding lived experiences of mental disorder can contribute to the development of person-centered psychological health nursing practice. It also reflects on nursing practice and identifies one aspect that requires development for nurses to work collaboratively with people who have a lived experience of a mental disorder. The article includes references and resources for further reading.

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Mental Health-Nursing
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
Professor’s Name
City
Date

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Introduction:
Person-centered care means putting individuals together with their families at the center of
decisions and seeing them as professionals working together with experts to acquire the best
results. The term can also be referred to as patient-centered, user-centered or family-centered.
Person-centered nursing practice is portrayed as care that respects individuals, values them and
organizes care to meet their needs. It has been noted that individuals who have experienced
mental illness can add up to the development of person-centred care. Collaborative mental health
nursing practice needs the interaction between clients and nurses to maintain a relationship with
the clients to ensure the care is client-centered.
Discuss how an understanding of peoples' lived experiences of a mental disorder can
contribute to the development of person-centered psychological health nursing practice.
Person-centered mental health nursing practice entails handling clients as people and not
handling them according to their condition to protect their dignity and their rights respected.
People with lived experience represent consumers whose experiences emulate the people
presently receiving services. To change the way in which providers of a mental health care think
about their clients, advancement of competencies in recovery-oriented care has been utilized in
mental health systems (Australian Health Ministers' Advisory Council, 2013). The understanding
of the recovery has been boosted by involving individuals with lived experiences of a
psychological disorder who provide advice to individuals who might be facing the same
problem.
The individuals who have lived with the experience of mental illness are willing to give
suggestions depicting from their own experiences such as poverty, depression, and distress along

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with resilience and recovery experiences. Moreover, they reassure those people with the problem
that things will be good and they should persevere and be persistent for better results at the end.
Also, they advise them to look for assistance, take care of themselves by accepting the illness
and taking precautions to prevent becoming unwell and maintain social involvement (Happell,
Cowin, Roper, Lakeman and Cox, 2013). Furthermore, they advise the people to create a
relationship with their providers by being honest and open to the practitioners. Since they have
the facts about what the patients are experiencing, then they can understand them in an emphatic
manner.
The people with lived experience of mental disorder have the responsibility of educating
the whole community on the issues concerning mental health and how to help the community to
support the people involved in the health problem on a process of recovering rather than the
route of a permanent ailment. From their experience, the experts understand what has been done
to support them and what needs to be developed. In that case, they can provide a distinctive
outlook on the effect of a present or a future policy along with assisting decision makers to
comprehend how the change can be executed (Happell, Cowin, Roper, Lakeman and Cox, 2013).
Experts by experience have moved mental health from a medical facility to a recovery
facility via contributing to personal recovery (Slade and Longden, 2015). They disprove stigma
and prejudice concerning the capability of individuals with a lived experience to live
independent and have a fruitful life. Because of their inherent capacity to support and
comprehend people affected by the mental disorder they have the aptitude to develop person-
centered psychological health nursing practices.

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Peers develop concern to patients by beginning to contact with patients calmly and
respectfully. In that case, they encourage clients to interact with them freely without pressure
(National Mental Health Commission, 2013). This perspective gives the clients to understand
that it is all about them and not peers or the staff and they feel appreciated. Furthermore, when
the experts by experience listen attentively to their clients, they contribute much to the
improvement of patient-centred care since their kindness and how they give feedback vindicates
their patients (Department of Health and Ageing, 2009). The physical presence of the experts by
experience on the confined sections allows patients to have a lot of freedom and have the
accessibility to enjoy the available resources.
These experts work with either the staff or the clients, and their achievement depends on the
cooperation of the clients and the team (Hungerford, Hodgson, Clancy, Monisse-Redman,
Bostwick and Jones, 2015). Therefore, they consume most of their time supporting and
promoting the collaboration by finding colleagues and sharing information. People with lived
experience of mental disorder serve as examples to clients and the staff. For clients who are
looking for ways to attain their goals, they are granted someone to listen to for their
achievements (Slade, 2013). On the other hand, for staff seeking for ways to perform their tasks
they are provided with an example of recovery in action by the peers and their expertise serve as
examples.
Reflect on your nursing practice and identify one aspect that requires some development
for you to work collaboratively with people who have a lived experience of a mental
disorder. Concerning relevant nursing literature, reflect on how you could develop this
aspect of your nursing practice.

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Regarding my nursing practice, the aspect that I found with a need to be improved is
competence. For a mental health nurse to work cooperatively with people who have a lived
experience of mental disorder must know how to fight the fear and stress due to change of
environment to deliver well (Australian College of Mental Health Nurses, 2013). A nurse may
feel that he or she is being confined in prison. However, lack of competence may be as a result of
stress which can be due to the workload, efficiency and confidence in the nursing responsibility
or due to collaboration with other professionals. During my nursing practice, the first time I was
full of anxiety and I received so many complaints and conflicts concerning the work in the
psychiatric ward and the association with the patients.
As a psychiatric nurse one is confronted with various issues to cope with his or her roles.
A sense of insufficiency of profession and deprivation of knowledge is demonstrated at work
especially when patients have questions, and you do not know what to answer. Moreover, the
presence of the inability to cope with the environment due to some limitations of unclear duties
and rules and regulations which are not easily understood results to the feeling of being
inadequate in the profession and weak (Meadows, Farhall, Fossey, Grigg, McDermott and Singh,
2012).
At first, communicating with patients was a challenge due to a lot of pressure at work
lacking the opportunity to interact with the mental health clients. Making reports and
documentation consumed much of the time hence frustrating me from perfecting. A patient with
so many questions but time was insufficient to provide answers due to colossal work. As days
went by I started learning how to talk to them and by assisting them, I gained a sense of
satisfaction in my job. Therefore, to develop competency a nurse in practice should build
experience and knowledge and therapeutic communication skills.

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When nurses are in fear of the head nurse, and when they feel threatened they are scared
of making mistakes since they lack enough experience and understanding to control the situation
(Costello, Thomson and Jones, 2013). Consequently, when they get support and compassion
from their colleagues and their head nurse, they have a sense of usefulness, and they develop
communication with staff hence improving their competence at work. Furthermore, the
personnel sometimes are very offensive, and they do not allow nurses in practice to engage in
patient care. In that case, nurses have a feeling of mistrust since they are not given the essential
roles to play in delivering nursing care hence limiting them to their responsibilities (Meadows,
Farhall, Fossey, Grigg, McDermott and Singh, 2012).
Conclusions:
The person-centered and collaborative nursing practices have the same principle of respect and
understanding to patients. Moreover, the person-centered method has been effective in achieving
the effectiveness of operations of a healthcare facility and also satisfying the clients. However,
for effective execution of the person-centered mental health practice, support is needed from the
nurses, professionals, and policymakers.
Psychiatric nurses may have contrary understandings because of the new environment,
colleagues, and patients and as a result, their competence is questionable to the nursing staff.
Therefore, measures need to be taken to address the issue of anxiety, fear, and stress to make the
psychiatric nursing attractive.

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References
Australian Health Ministers' Advisory Council. (2013), A national framework for recovery-
oriented mental health services: policy and theory, Commonwealth of Australia,
Canberra.
https://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/
B2CA4C28D59C74EBCA257C1D0004A79D/$File/recovpol.pdf
Australian College of Mental Health Nurses. (2013), Scope of practice of mental health nurses in
Australia 2013, ACMHN, Canberra. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. 2018, Mental
health services in Australia:
Costello, L., Thomson, M. & Jones, K. (2013), Mental health and homelessness. Final report,
Mental Health Council NSW, Sydney. Department of Health and Ageing. 2013, National
practice standards for the mental health workforce. Commonwealth of Australia,
Canberra.
Department of Health and Ageing. (2009), National mental health policy, Commonwealth of
Australia, Canberra. http://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/mental-
pubs-n-pol08
Happell, B., Cowin, L., Roper, C., Lakeman, R. & Cox, L. (2013), Introducing mental health
nursing: a service user-oriented approach, 2nd and Allen & Unwin, Sydney.

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Hungerford, C., Hodgson, D., Clancy, R., Monisse-Redman, M., Bostwick, R. & Jones, T.
(2015), Mental health care: an introduction for health professionals in Australia, Wiley, Milton.
Meadows, G., Farhall, J., Fossey, E., Grigg, M., McDermott, F. & Singh, B. (2012), Mental
health in Australia: collaborative community practice, 3rd edn, Oxford University Press,
Melbourne.
National Mental Health Commission. (2013), A contributing life: the 2013 national report card
on mental health and suicide prevention, NMHC, Sydney.
http://www.mentalhealthcommission.gov.au/media/94321/Report_Card_2013_full.pdf
Slade, M. (2013), 100 ways to support recovery: a guide for mental health professionals, 2nd
edn, Rethink Mental Illness, London.
https://www.rethink.org/media/704895/100_ways_to_support_recovery_2nd_edition.pdf
policies
Slade, M. & Longden, E. (2015), the empirical evidence about mental health and recovery: how
likely, how long, what helps, MI Fellowship, Victoria.