Applied Psychology for Nurses | Page 2

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE NURSE (Continued) 152 Emotional
Equilibrium 152 Self-correction 160 Training the Will 161
CHAPTER XIV
THE NURSE OF THE FUTURE 164
* * * * *
INDEX 169

Applied Psychology for Nurses
CHAPTER I
WHAT IS PSYCHOLOGY?
Wise men study the sciences which deal with the origins and
development of animal life, with the structure of the cells, with the
effect of various diseases upon the tissues and fluids of the body; they
study the causes of the reactions of the body cells to disease germs, and
search for the origin and means of extermination of these enemies to
health. They study the laws of physical well-being. They seek for the

chemical principles governing the reactions of digestive fluids to the
foods they must transform into heat and energy. So the doctor learns to
combat disease with science, and at the same time to apply scientific
laws of health that he may fortify the human body against the invasion
of harmful germs. Thus, eventually, he makes medicine itself less
necessary.
But another science must walk hand in hand today with that of
medicine; for doctors and nurses are realizing as never before the
power of mind over body, and the hopelessness of trying to cure the
one without considering the other. Hence psychology has come into her
own as a recognized science of the mind, just as biology, histology,
chemistry, pathology, and medicine are recognized sciences governing
the body. As these are concerned with the "how" and "why" of life, and
of the body reactions, so psychology is concerned with the "how" and
"why" of conduct and of thinking. For as truly as every infectious
disease is caused by a definite germ, just as truly has every action of
man its adequate explanation, and every thought its definite origin. As
we would know the laws of the sciences governing man's physical
well-being that we might have body health, so we would know the laws
of the mind and of its response to its world in order to attain and hold
fast to mind health. Experience with patients soon proves to us nurses
that the weal and woe of the one vitally affects the other.
"Psychology is the science of mental life, both of its phenomena and
their conditions."
So William James took up the burden of proof some thirty years ago,
and assured a doubting world of men and women that there were laws
in the realm of mind as certain and dependable as those applying to the
world of matter--men and women who were not at all sure they had any
right to get near enough the center of things to see the wheels go round.
But today thousands of people are trying to find out something of the
way the mind is conceived, and to understand its workings. And many
of us have in our impatient, hasty investigation, self-analytically taken
our mental machines all to pieces and are trying effortfully to put them
together again. Some of us have made a pretty bad mess of it, for we

tore out the screws and pulled apart the adjustments so hastily and
carelessly that we cannot now find how they fit. And millions of other
machines are working wrong because the engineers do not know how
to keep them in order, put them in repair, or even what levers operate
them. So books must be written--books of directions.
If you can glibly recite the definition above, know and explain the
meaning of "mental life," describe "its phenomena and their
conditions," illustrating from real life; if you can do this, and prove that
psychology is a science, i. e., an organized system of knowledge on the
workings of the mind--not mere speculation or plausible theory--then
you are a psychologist, and can make your own definitions. Indeed, the
test of the value of a course such as this should be your ability, at its
end, to tell clearly, in a few words of your own, what psychology is.
The word science comes from a Latin root, scir, the infinitive form,
scire, meaning to know. So a science is simply the accumulated, tested
knowledge, the proved group of facts about a subject, all that is known
of that subject to date. Hence, if psychology is a science, it is no longer
a thing of guesses or theories, but is a grouping of confirmed facts
about the mind, facts proved in the psychology laboratory even as
chemical facts are demonstrated in the chemical laboratory. Wherein
psychology departs from facts which can be proved by actual
experience or by accurate tests, it becomes metaphysics, and is beyond
the realm of science; for metaphysics deals with the realities of the
supermind, or the soul, and its relations to life, and death, and God.
Physics,