Jacques Lacan's theory of the subject as real, symbolic and imaginary: how can Lacanian theory be of help to mental health nursing practice?

Contribution of transference to the psychiatric nursing process

ABSTRACT Objective: to describe the contribution of the concept of transference to the application of the nursing process in the care of patients with psychical suffering. Method: Theoretical study, structured from the following question: Is it possible to develop the nursing process in the care of patients with psychical suffering by using transference? Result: The patient is considered as a subject of the unconscious and has a demand he/she is unaware of. Discussion: The transference guides the nursing process and favors the elaboration of what has no meaning in the symptom. Final considerations: As an implication for practice, the nursing process will articulate the transference function through the nursing diagnosis, which will promote the capture of subsidies for the planning and implementation of care, in which the purpose will be the symbolization of the symptom. To highlight speech as a means to therapeutic relation will offer the patients the condition to dictate the pace of articulation between their signifiers, which will dynamically temporalize the process.

Nursing process in mental health: an integrative literature review

Objective:

to identify evidences from the literature on the application of nursing process in care developed by the nurse in mental health.

Method:

integrative literature review between 1990 and 2013, in the PubMed, Scopus, CINAHL and LILCACS bases. Descriptors: nursing processes, mental health, nursing care.

Results:

19 papers were identified. Limited and partial usage of the nursing process in care established by a therapeutic relationship that respects the patient's individuality. We observe care proposals systematized for patients that present pathological aspects in the limits between the physical and psychical, which might be a response to the influence of the practice based on evidences.

Conclusion:

it was found an antagonistic movement between care based on the relationship and located in the standardization of diagnoses that respond to physical malaise. A lack of evidence was verified for the usage of the nursing process in mental health, and we point at the necessity for the creation of new possibilities for dialogue between relational and biological perspectives.