Abstract
The objective was to clarify what kind of experiences psychiatric mental health nursing teachers have in their interactions with students, addressing both the characteristics of students that affect that experience and how teachers handle their interpersonal relationships. A peer group of the teachers was held a total of 27 times, and the contents of the discussions were qualitatively and inductively analyzed. The study took place over a period of one year and three months, and a total of 84 mental health nursing teachers participated. In the group, a large number of the participants spoke of students with whom they were having difficulties. These students were showing characteristics described as "self-centered," "tending to worry about how they were evaluated by the teacher," and "lacking in empathy." It was thought that repeated damage to the students' narcissism due to traumatic experiences in their past such as a diagnosed mental disorder, shaped the characteristics of the students. Teachers were also hurt by failures to gain the attention of patients, resulting in compassion fatigue, which caused their narcissism to suffer. The introduction of systematic teacher "self-evaluations," the participation of teachers in the competition to get new students, and the existence of feeling rules applied to teachers aggravated this. In discussion, the interaction among the students, patients, and teachers in the clinical practice were analyzed. It became clear that in terms of interpersonal relationship what happened between students and patients were interrelated with what happened between students and teachers.
