Publisher's Synopsis
In the first book about nurse/patient relationships "To Nurse Means to Nurture: The Need for Nurses to Comfort Their Patients" I wanted to prove by research that it is in fact the responsibility of the nurse to comfort their patients and that includes being willing to touch their patients and show them affection. In this book, I am showing how the nurse is the "mother surrogate" but that the team of nurses is the "pseudo family" of the patient and all of them are supposed to comfort their patients and show them affection. I also wanted to show how nurses are supposed to allow the patient to regress and act childlike and be able to ask childlike requests for their childlike needs. And, if at any point the patient should say or do anything to offend the nurse, they are to try to figure out the cause of the behavior that offends them based on the patients own individuality and not what they may falsely assume they mean. If they are offended they need to blow it over and be willing to forgive the patient for saying or doing things that offend them or make them feel weird or uncomfortable without showing condemnation toward them. They are supposed to forgive the patient of any mishaps and continue to treat the patient with the same friendly compassionate comfort and care they always have before they even got offended. In the case of people with autism, some may say some really strange things or make really unusual requests that may seem mischievous in nature from the perspective of what a normal person would mean if they said the same thing, yet what they say that appears mischievous in nature is really an innocent request. It is very easy to misinterpret what an autistic patient wants or is saying. The emotions of what they want and what they feel may be totally different from what a normal person would mean by the same thing and they can be very innocent for asking the question and still bein danger of a scolding harsh lecture by a nurse because the nurse assumed the worst of what they said without first seeing the real reason they were making request. Autistic people have many sensory issues that have to be taken care of and need to be met that may seem strange to you but these sensory problems are very real and can only be relieved by what they are asking you. Nurses need to be very careful not to misinterpret what these people are saying or asking and not prejudge the motives of the autistic individual because unnecessary scolding for bad behavior based on an innocent request will likely be the result. In most instances that nurses do this and figure out later what is really going on, the autistic patient's feelings have already been badly hurt, their needs have gone unmet, and it psychologically hurts their well being. Please make sure to listen to your patients, figure out what is going on before you judge, and be willing to forgive them and go on if you are still offended. With me, I still need your affection and attention and your love and hugs after I mess up and when I don't receive this and get the cold shoulder treatment forever it actually causes me to fall into a deep depression and causes me to lose my will to live. Please be careful what you do and continue to show your loving compassionate care no matter what your patients say think or do to offend you and make you feel weird. Thank you. Your friend, Brian Gene Evans
