When from within, we
call it autosuggestion.
Many of the sick are temporarily resting their reasoning faculties and
their judgment. The sick body is causing a feeling of "jangling nerves,"
and the mind, too, is strongly tempted to be sick. So every harsh sound,
every jolt, almost every sentence spoken in their hearing suggests
immediate nervous reactions. The mind does not wait to weigh them. The
nervous system reacts to them the second the impression is registered.
The whole self is oversensitive, and the very inflection of a voice has
enormous significance. Let the nurse remember that her way of giving a
treatment, her expression, or her very presence becomes a potent
stimulus on the second, one to which the patient's mind responds like a
flash-light when the button is pressed.
The nurse must comprehend the principle of the nervous effect on the
patient of all that is done and said, and realize her tremendous
privilege in making those stimuli wholesome. The nurse who has a
sympathetic insight, with unswerving loyalty to orders, can carry them
out with the average patient, unpleasant though they may be to him, in
such a way that his wholesome emotional response will be called forth, a
response of co-operation, or of faith or of good breeding, or of
"downing" the impulse to indulgence; or a response directed toward
holding the nurse's interest and attention, and so keeping her in the
room; such a response as will gain some privilege, etc.
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