Emotional boundary work in advanced fertility nursing roles.
In this article we examine the nature of intimacy and knowing in the nurse-patient relationship in the context of advanced nursing roles in fertility care. We suggest that psychoanalytical approaches to emotions may contribute to an increased understanding of how emotions are managed in advanced nursing roles. These roles include nurses undertaking tasks that were formerly performed by doctors. Rather than limiting the potential for intimacy between nurses and fertility patients, we argue that such roles allow nurses to provide increased continuity of care. This facilitates the management of emotions where a feeling of closeness is created while at the same time maintaining a distance or safe boundary with which both nurses and patients are comfortable. We argue that this distanced or 'bounded' relationship can be understood as a defence against the anxiety of emotions raised in the nurse-fertility patient relationship.
Allan
Helen
H
European Institute of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Surrey, Guildford, UK. H.allan@surrey.ac.uk
Barber
Debbie
D
D000223:Adaptation, Psychological / Q000941:ethics; D000884:Anthropology, Cultural; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D001294:Attitude to Health; D003266:Continuity of Patient Care / Q000941:ethics / Q000458:organization & administration; D004644:Emotions / Q000941:ethics; D004645:Empathy; D004993:Ethics, Nursing; D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D007246:Infertility / Q000451:nursing / Q000523:psychology; D008297:Male; D009720:Nurse Clinicians / Q000941:ethics* / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000523:psychology*; D024802:Nurse's Role / Q000523:psychology*; D009723:Nurse-Patient Relations / Q000941:ethics*; D009730:Nursing Assessment; D015404:Nursing Methodology Research; D009769:Object Attachment; D017009:Professional Autonomy; D011361:Professional Competence; D011573:Psychoanalytic Interpretation; D012929:Psychological Distance; D012941:Social Responsibility; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D006113:United Kingdom