NURS 205-5: Reflective Essay on Psychiatric Nursing Clinical Practice

This reflective essay details a student's experience in a psychiatric nursing clinical practice, focusing on the transition from initial anxiety to understanding and effective patient interaction. The reflection highlights the importance of therapeutic communication, active listening, and understanding patient history in providing effective care. The student emphasizes learning to manage aggressive behaviors with calm and caring approaches rather than force, enhancing counseling skills, and developing patience. The essay concludes with an assessment of the knowledge gained, emphasizing its value for future psychiatric nursing endeavors and highlighting the effectiveness of therapy sessions and the significance of historical context in patient care. Desklib offers similar resources for students.

Running head: NURSING ASSIGNMENT
NURSING ASSIGNMENT
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

1NURSING ASSIGNMENT
Introduction:
Though theoretical knowledge is undoubtedly important, but there is no other process
of gaining knowledge like that of clinical practice. The process of clinical practice is
approved as the essential part of nursing. In this reflection I will be sharing experience I had
and things I learnt in my psychiatric nursing practice.
Thesis statement: This assignment will focus on the strengths and weaknesses of the clinical
practice in psychiatrics and future plan for using the practice.
As I didn’t have any previous experience in psychiatric section, I also had the mind
set like others that the patients are violent and unpredictable and somewhere it was the reason
behind their problem. At the beginning I was feeling anxious and I was unprepared, but as the
days passed, I was getting more comfortable and started understanding the whole concept of
the psychiatric nursing.
In the first few days of my clinical practice, I felt little anxious between the patients,
feared of getting attacked by any of the patients there. But as I started working I felt less
anxious, because now I was understanding their behaviour, their needs and the process of
handling them. It was little difficult at first, as you have to choose every steps very carefully
if you don’t want to face their difficult behaviour. The first important thing I learnt in the
whole process was to listen to them carefully and to show interest in them.
After few more days working with the clinical practice I gained knowledge about
things that are essential in psychiatric nursing. As we were dealing with the patients, we were
made to interact with them and observe their behaviour in every step. I started interacting
with one of the patients and came to know that she had suicidal tendencies and all she need
was a little counselling. And later after one to one interaction she opened up and shared her
past story due to which she was having problems and later by focusing on her history,

2NURSING ASSIGNMENT
strategies were designed. A major improvement was observed after the application of the
strategies. It is important to make the patient feel that you understand and you are there for
his help, this way they will open up and share their issues.
I can across many aggressive patients there, and we were trained to understand their
behaviour to judge the next action of the patient. We studied their mood swings, and used
measures accordingly. And I observed that force was not the cure, the patients were
becoming more aggressive when they were forced. If we handle them with calm and caring
attitude, they were not showing aggression. This helped me in becoming more understanding
and caring, which is an important feature a nurse should have. I enhanced my counselling
skills and I have evolved patience which is an essential while handling a critical patient.
Conclusion:
As I completed my nursing practice in psychiatrics, I came to know many new things
about myself and learned a lot about the patients and strategies to help them. I learned that
communication can help the patients a lot. The therapy sessions were also showing effective
results. According to my assessment throughout the practice I figured out that patient’s
problems are hidden in the past and to solve that you must have proper knowledge of their
history and values. I would just conclude that all the knowledge I have gained will help me in
my further psychiatric nursing.