Copyright (c) 2009 All rights reserved. http://works.bepress.com/christine_alavi Recent documents in Christine Alavi en-us Sun, 31 May 2009 04:23:55 PDT 3600 http://works.bepress.com/christine_alavi/36 http://works.bepress.com/christine_alavi/36 Wed, 20 May 2009 21:13:41 PDT Christine Alavi http://works.bepress.com/christine_alavi/35 http://works.bepress.com/christine_alavi/35 Wed, 20 May 2009 21:13:40 PDT This paper will examine how the narrative of one woman, Madeleine, can be constructed as symptomatic of the diagnosis of schizophrenia, and how it can also be read from other perspectives, particularly a poststructural feminist one. The readings are presented as possibilities for understanding the woman's experiences and the implications of this for mental health nursing practice. A poststructural feminist reading acknowledges the gendered experiences of subjectivity and how those experiences are constructed in language. The purpose of this paper is to identify for mental health nursing practice an approach which recognizes the figurative and literal characteristics of language in order to provide nursing care which positions the individual's experience of mental distress as central This requires an acknowledgement of Madeleine's path into mental distress rather than simply a categorization of what is observed in a clinical setting. Intervention may need to include a range of strategies: medical and nonmedical, psychotherapeutic and social, physical and environmental. It may also require the provision of sanctuary and security whilst these options are explored. Marie Crowe http://works.bepress.com/christine_alavi/34 http://works.bepress.com/christine_alavi/34 Wed, 20 May 2009 21:13:40 PDT This paper, written whilst the authors were working at Curtin University, Western Australia, describes a process of determining the psychomotor skills to be taught in an undergraduate nursing programme. It outlines how consultation with clinical agencies enhanced the planning of the skills component within the new nursing curriculum and details the outcomes in terms of faculty development and curriculum design Christine Alavi http://works.bepress.com/christine_alavi/33 http://works.bepress.com/christine_alavi/33 Wed, 20 May 2009 21:13:39 PDT Christine Alavi http://works.bepress.com/christine_alavi/32 http://works.bepress.com/christine_alavi/32 Wed, 20 May 2009 21:13:38 PDT Anne Moehead http://works.bepress.com/christine_alavi/30 http://works.bepress.com/christine_alavi/30 Wed, 20 May 2009 21:13:37 PDT As I have suggested elsewhere (Alavi 2005) we, in nursing, have not written about 'caring' very well. Our attitude to it has been variously that we have beaten our breasts because we do not do it well enough, or that we see it in terms of 'carative factors' (Watson 1988), which enables us to 'tick boxes' to say we have done it. Much of this, I think, comes from the way we were trained to be 'empathetic': to focus on or be available to the client, to the exclusion of our own mental health. Morse et al.'s paper, 'Beyond empathy: expanding expressions of caring', when it appeared in JAN in 1992 was expressing something refreshingly new - that we have a larger repertoire for communicating with clients than empathy alone, and that empathy might be an undesirable attribute in the clinical setting. Christine Alavi http://works.bepress.com/christine_alavi/31 http://works.bepress.com/christine_alavi/31 Wed, 20 May 2009 21:13:37 PDT Christine Alavi http://works.bepress.com/christine_alavi/29 http://works.bepress.com/christine_alavi/29 Wed, 20 May 2009 21:13:36 PDT Empirical evidence, gained from group discussions with both staff and students, points to the need for effective analyses of the facilitative tutoring situation required in problem-based learning. The research problem centres on the need for models which are sufficiently detailed, general, and usable to provide the necessary help in understanding facilitative tutoring and assisting its development. This paper describes the evidence and discusses a relevant model. The model enables interactions between the tutor, student, and public knowledge to be described in terms consistent with the cooperative, questing, critical, reflective, self-evaluative, and knowledge-rich nature of effective problem-based learning. Christine Alavi http://works.bepress.com/christine_alavi/28 http://works.bepress.com/christine_alavi/28 Wed, 20 May 2009 21:13:35 PDT Student nurses from universities are often ill-prepared for working with patients for whom they may feel disgust or discomfort. This paper discusses how students become able to work with those patients who are sick, dying and dead. It is a sustained engagement with the literature on abjection and disgust and is not the outcome of evaluation research. It considers the role of problem-based learning pedagogy in facilitating students' negotiation of their own discomfort and horror, and describes experiences which enable them to approach abject patients with more comfort and less disgust. The paper argues the importance of creating spaces where students can explore issues which are distressing and disturbing so that they will feel able to remain in nursing. Christine Alavi http://works.bepress.com/christine_alavi/27 http://works.bepress.com/christine_alavi/27 Wed, 20 May 2009 21:13:34 PDT Christine Alavi