As this is my 40th anniversary in nursing, I have been reflecting upon what it is to be a nurse.  Nursing is still an art and science, but it is not a career for everyone.  There is a fine line between helping someone in pain and taking on someone else’s pain.  Empathy was the cornerstone of my early hospital training as it helped our nursing class to better understand and respond to a patient’s situation, concerns and pain.  We were also taught that maintaining good personal boundaries was important, so that we didn’t enter into a rescuer relationship with anyone.  It was pointed out that if we tried to “fix or rescue” someone, it was our need, not the patient’s need, that was being triggered.  This is not the true focus of the therapeutic relationship – it is meant to focus on the patient’s needs.  We were not there to Fix a patient;  we were there to Care for a patient.  Care with all your heart, without losing yourself or harming the patient.

There were always patients who tugged at your heartstrings more than others.  There were always patients who mirrored your family and friends – both those you loved and those you didn’t.  There were patients who seemed to have the same life experiences and situations as us.  We were taught that as nurses, we would need to be even more mindful of our reactions and responses in these situations.  The psychology folks call this  “transference – counter-transference”.  And so the lessons on caring versus fixing (or curing) became real.  Some days it was easier than others to remember and carry out this lesson.

Some things have changed over time.  Our society is becoming more high-tech and low-touch.  Yet during times of stress, illness or impending death, there is still a place for respectful, supportive, caring human touch that technology just can’t duplicate.  A hand on the shoulder, a gentle hug, a smile, a soothing massage or simply holding hands in silence can convey more support or understanding than any emoj or tweet could ever hope to.  When the touch is genuine, there is a message of loving kindness sent that can set the stage for comfort or healing to occur.

In her book,  The Blossoming Heart, Dr. Robbi Zeck describes the difference between healing and curing.

”  … Healing involves education, re-assessment, changing many of the conditions under which we are living and re-examining the structure of our lives.  In time, I came to understand that if life is holding us back, we may need to question our habits, desires, behaviours and even our relationships. 

Healing requires that we keep on examining everything until we find our own truth and discard everything that clutters our lives. Clutter comes in many forms.  The unseen clutter, lurking hidden in our psyche, can be the most difficult to shift.  clutter of the mind can include worry, concern about what others think of us, negative thinking, needing to be right and focusing on things that aren’t really important.  … Our minds and our bodies benefit from periodic sorting and sifting through what is important.  This can be a positive step towards embracing stillness and “time to be”.

Curing, on the other hand, aims to restore a person to function or wholeness after the onset of illness and disease.  Curing addresses toxins, invasions, degeneration, endotoxins and so on.  Healing enables us to find resources that allow us to celebrate life, despite illness and disease.  Healing pushes us towards a wholeness that is a process as well as a creative response.  We can have a disease and not be ill. We can be ill without having a disease. Illness can also be about spiritual discomfort;  it can cause illness.  When not connected to our spiritual path we are unable to utilize our spiritual resources.”   p.35

In my 40 years of nursing, I’ve come to understand that doctors cure, nurses care and the process of healing belongs to the patient/client.  My role, as I see it, is to offer care for the body, mind and spirit so that the patient/client can engage in their healing process.  I will continue to use empathy, support, respectful touch, prayer, health information, holistic modalities, meditation, art and science to help others achieve their highest health and healing potential.  Ultimately the act of healing is their work.  But the act of caring is mine.  That aspect of nursing will not change for me.

The mind has time to wander and wonder while walking along a beautiful beach.  Connections and realizations seem to occur more easily when Nature is your companion. Here is how my mind “wandered and wondered” while on a recent vacation.

What do Antigua, Eliot Ness and Rutgers University have in common?  What about Eric Clapton, Al Capone and Dr. Janet Woititz?  The connections will become evident shortly!

While on vacation in Antigua, my husband read a biography on Eliot Ness (yes, he really did exist and he really went after gangsters and the organized crime syndicate).  The book revealed it was estimated that in the late 1890’s and early 1900’s, the average consumption of alcohol was 90 gallons per year, per person. If a gallon is approximately 4 litres, then each person consumed approximately 360 litres per year.  That’s almost 1 litre of alcohol a day!  The devastation this level of consumption played on the family and community was highlighted, in part, by the efforts of the Temperance Society.  Their action was one of the factors that led to the Prohibition Era.

During Prohibition, Al Capone made a lot of money bootlegging and smuggling alcohol throughout the States. So although no one was supposed to drink alcohol, a lot of people could still get their booze through illegal sources.  The consumption rate went down slightly, but never actually stopped.  So all the issues associated with alcohol use, abuse and addiction continued on.  And although Eliot Ness got Al Capone in the end, the bootlegging and smuggling never stopped.

Fast forward to this month. While walking on an Antiguan beach, I recalled that many years ago, Eric Clapton gifted the island of Antigua with an addictions recovery facility called Crossroads.  It is a place where anyone can go to get clean and sober and set a healthier course for their life.  Anyone from outside the island must pay for their treatment program, but Mr. Clapton has ensured that any Antiguan wanting to detox and recover can do so, free of charge. It occurred to me that the cycle of alcohol abuse and addiction in North America has lasted more than 130 years.  We would be hard-pressed to find anyone who has not been affected in some way by someone addicted to alcohol.  How has this affected families from generation to generation?

In her 1976 Doctoral Dissertation at Rutgers University, Janet Woititz explored “Self-Esteem in Children of Alcoholics”.  This then led to further investigations into how the self-perceptions of these children change as they move into adulthood.  Without interventions to help these adults change their self-perceptions to something more positive and empowering, they continue to exhibit low self-esteem, feel discouraged or depressed, believe themselves to be unlovable and unloved and have a sense of isolation from others.  They also have difficulty expressing their feelings and can be so preoccupied with anxiety that they truly can’t connect honestly or comfortably with others.

In her 1983 book, Adult Children of Alcoholics, Dr. Woititz describes the adult child of an alcoholic as being affected and has reacted in ways that those who are not adult children of alcoholics may not have. She found there are certain generalizations that can describe these adult children.  Here are some of her original findings:

• Adult children of alcoholics (ACOA) guess at what normal behaviour is
• ACOA have difficulty following a project through from beginning to end
• ACOA judge themselves without mercy
• ACOA have difficulty having fun
• ACOA take themselves very seriously
• ACOA over-react to changes over which they have no control
• ACOA constantly seek approval and affirmation
• ACOA are super responsible or super irresponsible
• ACOA are extremely loyal, even in the face of evidence that the loyalty is undeserved

From her work, a network of support groups has sprung up around the world.  The current support programs help people achieve “emotional sobriety” – a way of functioning that helps them get their needs met in healthy, helpful ways.  It also helps them reprogram those low self-esteem issues and negative self-perceptions that they have held from childhood onward.  It is as if they are detoxing generations of emotional pain and suffering so that they can lead happier healthier lives now.  And so can their children.

The current ACOA programs are actually open to ANYONE who grew up in a dysfunctional home.  It was found that many of the issues, emotional traumas and relationship difficulties of ACOA were also true for those who grew up in households where there was gambling, drug abuse, over-eating, chronic illness, profound religious attitudes, were adopted, lived in foster care or in other potentially dysfunctional systems.  There is help and hope for these folks and their families, too, through the ACOA support groups and programs.

And all this came to mind because of a book, a beach, a guitar hero, a gangster and a university doctoral student who asked the right questions at the right time.