Solution Focused Interactions in Nursing: Growth and Change

Nursing is about growth, yet it spends so much time focusing on disease and entropy. While the nursing role is expanding into advanced practice roles, and twenty-first century nursing is almost unrecognisable compared to its nineteenth century roots, at the heart of nursing is growth. Sometimes called "caring", growth requires nurturing, and, while it is difficult to define, without it nurses are merely medical technicians. In the context of nursing, health is about change, change from a less healthy state to a more healthy state and the nurse's role is to promote that change whenever possible. However, change is difficult; we are creatures of habit, afraid of change, and preferring the illusion of safety with the "devil we know rather than the devil we don't know". However, when someone is ready to change, they have already grown.This book combines the author's twenty-five years of experience in Solution Focused Interactions and empirical evidence derived from his PhD research to argue that Solution Focused Interactions provide a means for nurses, in all domains of nursing and midwifery, to provide care that promotes growth and change in the people they work with, while restoring and maintaining their enthusiasm for practice. This book serves as an eminently practical introduction to how Solution Focused Interactions can be used across nursing practice, making use of transcripts and case studies to illustrate the ways in which nurses can help their patients to grow and change, while also growing and changing themselves.

About the Author :
S.W. Smith completed his training as a Mental Health Nurse in 1983, before going on to train as a Community Mental Health Nurse and as a Solution Focused Therapist, going on to lead the Community Mental Health Nurse course at Robert Gordon University, UK, and to develop the only degree level Solution Focused Therapy course in Scotland. His PhD research investigated the impact of training in Solution Focused Interactions on nurse's sense of self and professional identity. He was appointed an Enterprise Fellow at Robert Gordon University in 2012, and a Senior Lecturer in Mental Health and Wellbeing in 2015. He retired from academic practice in 2018, and now maintains a private practice. His publications include numerous articles in various journals, including Nursing Standard, Primary Health Care, and Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing.