Perspectiva de los docentes sobre fortalezas y debilidades de su participación

Relationship-awareness is the first aspect of social competence required for caring practice. This is the student’s growing ability to accurately pick up on emotions in other people and understand what is really going on. This includes the student understanding what others might be feeling, even when they don’t think and feel the same way. The educators suggested that this may become problematic for those

students who have unresolved issues (emotional baggage). Emotional baggage includes transferring old hurt-laden agendas into current situations; it is recognised by others when the individual displaces repressed emotional distress, including fear and anger (Postle, 1991; Heron, 1992).

At times, as outlined in the following comment from an educator in the third focus group, emotional baggage may prevent the students’ ability to relate effectively to clients, peers and others:

…students have life events or divorce or stuff like that and they can’t say oh well sorry I’m not going to think about the fact that my partner has just left me (Group 3, p.17)

Emotional baggage may hinder development of relationship-awareness or inhibit any learning and practicing of this competence at all.

The level of stress experienced by nursing students remains a feature in the literature. However, exploring what students use as coping mechanisms in response to stress is not apparent. The situations students experience as they gain self awareness and self-management may be chaotic. Students are likely to encounter a changing self, loss of previous defences and regain management of self and new coping strategies, as they progress through learning (Shipton, 2002).

The impact of a student’s prior life experience and the way in which they have learned to cope, may influence their development of social competence. This next extract highlights the developmental context of learning relationship awareness. The educator acknowledges the need

to consider the developmental nature of emotional competence when undertaking assessment with students:

…this stuff [learning coping strategies] starts from when you are a child, it starts from what your parents teach you and what your school teacher and peers teach you, it’s not suddenly something that happens when you start nursing (Group, 1, p.39)

As nursing students begin to understand the role of emotional labour within their developing practice, they can begin to tune out of their own issues, tune into the clients needs and utilise therapeutic communication skills (Freshwater & Stickley, 2004). According to Ryan, Carryer and Patterson (2003, p. 53): “The core business of nursing which sets it apart from all other professions is that nurses work to integrate or encompass the lived body as they care for the corporeal body”. This means that nursing student’s require skills to attend to the physical issues experienced by their clients whilst understanding and incorporating care which encompasses the psychosocial, cultural and political context of the client. As this educator’s comment below highlights, nursing students require relationship-awareness in order to gain skills to professionally care for others:

…some students are so caught up in their personal difficulties that they totally miss the cues of each other in class or behave in a way towards us that you end up thinking hell, what planet are you on, how are you going to be able to focus on the patient in pain, you are not even looking after yourself (Group 2, p.6)

Heron (1990) outlines the need to manage emotions in everyday life, heal emotional distress and develop competence in professional application of emotional competence. There is a need for those working

in caring professions to work toward addressing unresolved distress, so the people in the position of requiring care are not jeopardised (MacCulloch, 1998). The educators suggested that those students who are experiencing unresolved distress, or those who might have ongoing difficulties coping with emotional issues, pose problems for the clients for whom they are required to care:

…it can be a matter of time; it’s almost like a fuse. They [the student] can manage it for a period, then it comes out in terms of relationships with other staff or shown in the way they lack care for the patient. It comes to a point where they don’t cope any longer because they put it aside without dealing with it (Group 3, p.16) …they [student’s] need to develop the ability to know that there are issues [in how they personally cope], to put it aside at work, while they are at work, but they are continuously working on it to manage it or solve it so they don’t burn out (Group 2, p.6)

The previous and following comments represent the collective group understanding. What is being emphasised is the ongoing need for critical feedback within the assessment relationship. This is so students can begin to address unresolved emotional issues that may impact on their relationships with clients:

…they’ve got lots of life skills and a number of those are poor life experiences and negative attributes and some of their coping skills are not positive ones, or helpful to others in the therapeutic sense (Group 3, p.8)

Identifying that there are multiple aspects to interpersonal communication is key to learning personal and social competence. In

doing so, educators can foster relationship-awareness in students, as they learn the values and expectations of a nursing culture.