Psychiatric Nurses’ Embodied Understanding of Patients with Schizophrenia and How to Care for Them

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to describe psychiatric nurses’ understanding and practice with regard to the care of patients with schizophrenia by examining the nurses’ embodied experience of providing that care.

Methods: Semi-structured interviews regarding episodes of providing care for patients with schizophrenia were conducted with 15 nurses who had three or more years of experience working with such patients. Data were analyzed using a phenomenological approach based on Merleau-Ponty’s ideas on embodiment.

Results: 1. The nurses’ embodied understanding of patients with schizophrenia and how to care for them was found to have two dimensions: corporeal and linguistic.

2. According to the nurses, living was found to be difficult for patients with schizophrenia for three reasons. Two related to corporeality: “They can’t adapt to their bodies” and “They feel threatened by the bodies of others.” The other related to expressing themselves through language: “They have difficulty living their lives in a way that they can be themselves.”

3. In the nurses’ care practices related to each of these difficulties, they tried to “Treat the patient’s illness by relating to them,” “Resonating,” and “Being responsive.”

Discussion: The results suggested that through the phenomenon of intercorporeality, the psychiatric nurses were able to treat the difficulties that patients with schizophrenia had in life—which stemmed from their “malformed sense of self”—by relating to them using embodied knowledge about how to interact with them.