Self Awareness In Psychiatric Nursing

“Self awareness is a state of being where you deeply understand your thoughts, emotions and behaviours and how they affect people and the world around them. When people are self aware they move beyond simply existing or reacting to their environment to deliberately living a fulfilling and meaningful life. People get to know the real of them and do things that reflect who they are deep inside” (Source: internet).

Rawlinson, (1990) defines self-awareness as a conscious process in which we consider our understanding of ourselves. Having self-awareness and the ability to reflect means you can assess your own knowledge, skills and behaviours (NCL, 2014). In order to improve the quality of care and develop skills and confidence, one must reflect on their self-awareness experiences, to reach their full potential of practise. To define reflection Duffy (2008) describes reflective practise as an active and deliberate process to critically examine practice. Through self-awareness individuals can get to know more about what they do and what limits their abilities (Ghaye and Lillyman, 2001). Thus improving the quality of care provided to service users, as nurses have the responsible for providing care to the best of their ability to patients and their families.

A nursing philosophy coincides with self-awareness. Nursing philosophies are developed by each individual nurse regarding the nursing practice and are important in understanding what is fundamentally important to each nurse, along with their values and beliefs. Self-awareness, in short, is knowledge of one 's self, feelings, motives, and desires. In order for nurses to develop their own nursing philosophy they must first have a good sense of self-awareness. As a future nurse it is important that I recognize my own self-awareness so I can continue to build onto my beliefs and values of the nursing profession and gain a better understanding of what is fundamentally important to me as a nurse. In this paper I will discuss why I chose the nursing profession, my beliefs and values, and what I feel is fundamentally important in the nursing profession.

Daniel Goleman provides examples of individuals experiencing self-awareness at both work and in one’s life (Goleman, 2013). Being conscious of one’s inner world, beliefs, thoughts, and concepts are what comprise self-awareness. In one’s daily life there are situations, struggles, and trials which can impact sound judgement and resolution. Self-awareness helps the individual make healthy decisions and knowing when to ask for help to cope with an overwhelming issue. Also learning to grow through a limiting perspective to compromise with others and seek alternatives (Levine, 2013). Others may disagree with ones beliefs, decisions, and lifestyle, yet the individual can recognize feelings about those in disagreement with them and avoid unnecessary conflict. While in the work

Self-awareness is an extremely important quality that is present in every successful person and it allows for introspection about work ethic and the best ways to eliminate outside forces that pull away at a path to productivity. Gary Vaynerchuk, a successful entrepreneur, speaks on this by saying that “the real answer comes down to self-awareness. If you are a CEO or a leader or an operator, you need to be self-aware” (Vaynerchuk). This simple concept can allow people to understand what they need to do to tune out all other influences to concentrate. Nevertheless, this is not a common quality, as it is extremely difficult for people to objectively view themselves, creating a struggle between what others tell them and what they know.

Self-awareness involves the ability to understand and evaluate your own emotions through reflection, self-comparisons and feedback from others (Steiner, 2014). Self-awareness aims at enhancing self-knowledge, behavioral, and emotional improvements, and accommodating weaknesses (Steiner, 2014). It allows individuals to understand how they think, behave, and respond to situations that they encounter. To achieve this, feedback from other people is required. People who are self-aware are self-driven, resourceful, eager to learn, self-motivated, and problem-solvers. They also portray independence of self-concept (Steiner, 2014). Self-awareness helps an individual to practice effective self-management.

During my work placement I noticed that nurses work in a variety of services and are in an ideal position to promote patients’ mental health and wellbeing by helping and empowering them to realise their abilities rather than focusing on their disability or illness (Ruddick,2013).

In this case study, one day of care for a 28 year old, male patient on a low secure psychiatric unit will be examined and discussed. The main focus will be on implementation and evaluation of the nursing process. These areas will be covered under; physiological, psycho-sociological and pharmacological aspects of the patient’s care. Although, the case study is discussed using third person expression, the care discussed is what was implemented and evaluated by myself, a second year student nurse, under supervision from a qualified member of staff.

People with high self-awareness are also able to speak accurately and openly-although not necessarily effusively or confessionally-about their emotions and the impact they have on their work. Those people can also be recognized by their performance reviews and the self-confidence.

In very earlier research, the theory developed by Wicklund (1975, 1978, 1979) defines self-awareness mostly as one’s ability to self-observe. That person will base on certain standard or new information to judge his own behavior (as cited in

Self-awareness is self-understanding and self-knowledge. It 's getting to know your true, genuine self. Self-awareness enables you to identify and understand factors of which you were not aware until now that control your reactions and behaviors and harm your relationships, such as: your fears, needs, messages you have internalized, beliefs and opinions.

In becoming an effective manager for my future career self-awareness wound enhance my ability to identify myself constantly in order to manage myself and order individual in the organisation, it we help me identify area of success and areas of growth in knowing my strength and weakness that seeks for improvement as a manager it will help me to be more effective in performing my job as a manager, self-analysis will aid me as a manage in decision process in knowing where am heading to and why in order to achieve my goals; self-awareness gives me effective possibilities for understanding my own emotional dynamics. This awareness also helps me to oversee group emotions in working in team and directly stirring up their productivity (Baldwin et al 2008).

Self-awareness is another part of how we perceive ourselves. The degree to which we are aware of ourselves vary. There are two different types of self-awareness, your private self-awareness and your public self-awareness. Your private self-awareness is the awareness of your internal state such as your thoughts, feelings, or desires. It can make us more aware of our attitudes and values. When our behavior doesn’t match our values, a discrepancy is made. Because discrepancies are viewed as negative, we will usually seek to change our behavior.

When introducing the concept of self-consciousness, it can be very difficult for individuals to understand that there are many forms of self-consciousness. Many already have a definition in mind as soon as they hear the word self-consciousness. It is made up of many concepts because it isn’t just a cognitive state, rather, many cognitive states. The mind processes many things as opposed to just knowing things. Humans are capable of doing and desiring many things while self-evaluating and questioning oneself. Everyone is able to consider their own actions and to think about themselves. When thinking, humans are able to consider ideas and depictions regarding the self and others. Regarding oneself allows for evaluating self-worth in refinement to common social roles (Bermudez).

Self Awareness is the ability to know your own emotions and recognize their influence while using guts feeling to guide decisions. It includes acknowledgement of our personality, our strong opinion and weaknesses, our likes and dislikes. Developing self-awareness can help us to identify when we are stressed out or under pressure. It is also often a must for real communication and interpersonal relations, as well as for developing empathy for others. Self