In both of these instances reason has followed the leadings of feeling.
It is unpleasant to hurt the patient, and she is disagreeable, too, when
you insist on carrying out the orders. It is easier to agree with her
ideas and sympathize with her troubles, much easier than to find some
other avenue for her thinking, or to search for feeling substitutes. It
is pleasanter right now to allow her mind to slip unmolested into sick
reactions than to lead her, unwilling as she is, into the ways of
health. Reason follows feeling's logic, which suggests that it is much
better for the patient to talk of her ills than to keep them pent up
inside; and judgment is sadly obscured.
The emotionally balanced nurse hears the story once, that she may have
the material for helping the need. Feeling, perhaps deep and genuine
sympathy with a real trouble, is aroused, and rightly. But this brings a
keen desire to help the situation. Reason insists that talking of
sufferings, real or fancied, only makes them more insistently felt; that
there must be some better way to meet them.
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