PSYCHOTHERAPEUTIC NURSING FOR A PATIENT WITH AMYOTROPHIC LATERAL SCLEROSIS

Abstract

The Psychotherapeutic Nursing (PTN) is a holistic care to ease physical pain and emotional-social agony, and to support psychological development and growth of patients with physical illness or injury. This approach is expected to help them become aware of, and satisfy, their suppressed needs and desires. In this research, the author, a nurse and psychotherapist, applied the PTN to a patient in a terminal stage of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and investigated the psychological process of the patient under the PTN. The patient, once overwhelmed by anticipatory anxiety and fear of death, overcame conflicts and fear of death, came to adapt himself to his miserable fate, accepted death, and finally passed away in peace with the intervention of PTN. In this process, the author supported him in expressing and then satisfying his definite and specific needs and desires with arrangement of human and physical resources. Information and ideas were exchanged among the staff so that the same goal could be shared, and the entire ward functioned psychotherapeutically. The patient died a peaceful death, being respected as a human being.