Applied Psychology for Nurses

by Mary F. Porter

After the Armistice Jim and Richard, who have fought for months side by side, go to Paris together. Richard may “have a fling” at Jim’s amusements for the sake of playing the game and “seeing how the other half lives” and all that—but before long we shall find him in the high-class theaters and restaurants, visiting the wonderful art collections and libraries, riding in luxurious automobiles, and staying in the best hotels he can find. And even though Jim may have saved Richard’s life and Richard is eternally grateful, and loves Jim as a “dandy good scout,” their ways will inevitably drift apart when the one big common interest of fighting together for a free world is over. They will always remember each other. Jim will decide that a “highbrow” can be a real man, and Richard will ever after have a fellow-feeling for the “other half” and think of them now as “folks.” But Jim is not at home in Richard’s neighborhood and circle; and Richard is a fish out of water in Jim’s. The point of view of each has been largely determined by his heredity and his environment.

But suppose Jim isn’t true to type. From the time he was a mere youngster the ash-man life did not appeal to him. In school he liked the highbrow crowd; he “took to” Latin and literature. He has a feeling of vague disgust when he sees a vulgar picture, a shudder when the street-organ grinds. There is something in Jim different. He isn’t in tune with either his immediate heredity or his environment. The contribution from some remote ancestor has overbalanced the rest, and Jim becomes a professional man.

Or perhaps Richard breaks his father’s heart. Instead of following the trail already made, he cuts loose, frequents vulgar resorts, hates his school work, becomes a loafer and a bum—and, finally, a second-rate day laborer. Again, what he is himself, his “vital spark” has been stronger than immediate heredity and environment, and has broken through.

Getting the Other Man’s Point of View

Our points of view are very frequently merely hereditary or acquired prejudices, hence altogether emotional rather than rational. We only with great difficulty see things through another man’s eyes. It necessitates comprehending his background fully, and standing exactly where he stands, so mind and eyes can both look out from the same conditions that confront him. And this is only possible for the man or woman possessed of a vicarious imagination. Such an imagination, however, can be cultivated.

You hate my father. He injured yours—unjustly, to your mind, of course, for yours can do no wrong. From my point of view this father of mine is a great, good man. From your point of view he is wicked and cruel. We are both honest in our emotion-directed opinions. Until you can know my father as I know him, and I can know yours as you know him, we shall never agree about them. But I can learn to understand why you feel as you do, and you can learn to understand why I feel as I do. I can put myself, in imagination, in your place, and see that other man as my father, and pretty well grasp your point of view, and you can likewise get mine.

After all, the law is very simple. Each man is the result of the things he puts his attention chiefly upon; and he puts it naturally upon the things which his forebears and his surroundings have held before him. The rare person and the trained person can assert the “vital spark” of his own personality and tear attention away from the easy direction and force, and hold it somewhere else. So he can change his points of view by learning that there are other vantage grounds which direct to better results. With some one else to lead the way and give a bit of help, or with the urge of desire to understand the new viewpoint, or by the drive of his will, he can change his own.

Let us not forget that what we see depends on whether or not our eyes are normal, on where we look, or on what kind of spectacles we wear. Two things we can change—where we look, and the spectacles. If our eyes were made wrong we probably cannot change that, but we can often correct poor vision by right artificial lenses. There are people doomed to live in most unattractive, crowded surroundings who make a flower-garden of charm and sweetness there, or, without grounds, keep a window-box of fragrance. The normal person can pretty largely either make the most impossible environment serve his ends or get into a better one. So we can usually look to something constructive, helpful, attractive, or beautiful; and we can refuse to wear blue spectacles.

We nurses soon realize that there are just about as many points of view as there are people, and that if we would help cure attitudes as well as bodies, and so lessen the tendency to sickness, it behooves us to learn to see what the other man sees through his eyes or by the use of his glasses, from where he stands.

Let us try just a few experiments. Hold your pain and suffering from your appendix operation, and disappointment because you can’t be bridesmaid at your chum’s wedding, up close to your eyes, and you cannot see anything else. They crowd the whole field of vision. Look at the world from the eyes of a spoiled woman of wealth who for twenty years has had husband, friends, and servants obedient to her every whim. She has grown selfish and demanding. What she has asked for, hitherto, has been immediately forthcoming. Now she is ill, and she naturally considers the doctors and nurses mere agents to secure her relief from discomfort. She is willing to pay any price for that—and still she is allowed to suffer. From her point of view it is utterly unreasonable, inexcusable. What are hospitals and nurses for, anyway? And she is carping, critical, and disagreeable. Her attitude is as sick as her body. How could it be otherwise?