Paradoxes in Nurses' Identity, Culture and Image: The Shadow Side of Nursing

by Margaret McAllister, Donna Brien

Overview

This book examines some of the more disturbing representations of nurses in popular culture, to understand nursing’s complex identities, challenges and future directions.

It critically analyses disquieting representations of nurses who don’t care, who kill, who inspire fear or who do not comply with laws and policies. Also addressed are stories about how power is used, as well as supernatural experiences in nursing. Using a series of examples taken from popular culture ranging from film, television and novels to memoirs and true crime podcasts, it interrogates the meaning of the shadow side of nursing and the underlying paradoxes that influence professional identity. Iconic nursing figures are still powerful today. Decades after they were first created, Ratched and Annie Wilkes continue to make readers and viewers shudder at the prospect of ever being ill. Modern storytelling modes are bringing to audiences the grim reality that some nurses are members of the working poor, like Cath Hardacre in Trust Me, and others can be dangerous con artists, like the nurse in Dirty John.

This book is important reading for all those interested in understanding the links between nursing’s image and the profession’s potential as an agent for change.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781032175218
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	09/30/2021
Series:	Routledge Research in Nursing and Midwifery
Pages:	188
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Margaret McAllister is Professor of Nursing at Central Queensland University, Australia. With a background in nursing, mental health nursing, education and cultural studies, Margaret teaches in the Master of Mental Health Nursing and has research expertise in Narrative Therapy and Narrative Research.

Donna Lee Brien is Professor of Creative Industries at Central Queensland University, Australia. Co-editor of the Australasian Journal of Popular Culture, Donna’s research on writing and popular culture has been widely published in scholarly and popular publications.

Table of Contents

1. Transgressive texts about nursing 2. Nursing’s dark past and secret knowledge 3. Objects of Desire 4. Nursing and the abject 5. Apparitions, lost souls and healing spaces 6. Mighty, Mean and Monstrous Nurses 7. Murdering nurses 8. Nurses and sick health care systems 9. Growing from adversity 10. Conclusion: Out of the shadows, into the light

Editorial Reviews

Reviewer: Patricia E. Zander, BSN, MSN, PhD, RN (Viterbo University)
Description: This book covers the dark side of nursing.
Purpose: According to the book, it was written to "examine some of the more disturbing representations of nurses to popular culture, to understand nursing's complex identities, challenges, and future direction."
Audience: The book is intended for all levels of nurses, especially beginner students. However, it is more appropriate for advanced level nurses interested in studying the history or image of nursing at much greater depth than is usually provided in beginning level education. The first author is a professor of nursing with a mental health and research background; the second author is also a professor with a focus on popular culture.
Features: The book covers the various images of nurses/nursing from the past into current day using extensive plot lines from movies and television programs as illustrations of these images. The images are explored using Jungian-based psychoanalysis. The exploration of these images is presented as being necessary for nurses to develop their own professional identity. These negative images are compared to those of the "good nurse," who is also presented as a negative image. The book contains a few graphic representations of the images in some of the chapters, but it is mainly all text.
Assessment: This book is a difficult read for the beginning student/practitioner who is just learning what it means to be a nurse. It is a book that needs to be read and discussed with nurses who have developed their own identity through experience and higher education. Fundamentals and history of nursing books have chapters on the images of nursing for readers at the foundational level of practice. This is a very in-depth, psychoanalytical exploration of the "dark side" of nursing.

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