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The 's Role Of The American Nurse Association ( Ana )

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Hildegard Elizabeth Peplau was Born 1909 in Reading, Pa., Peplau was raised

by rigid German immigrant parents. Women were expected to marry, have children and

cater to the needs of their husbands. Peplau wanted a different path; she seized on

nursing as her ticket out. Peplau was both exalted and vilified throughout the 50-year

span of her career. During her Rutgers tenure, Peplau traveled and lectured widely on

psychiatric nursing, consulting with other academic institutions and government

agencies, and serving on national and international committees. She served as both

executive director and as president of the American Nurse Association (ANA), the only

person to ever hold both positions. In 1942, Peplau enlisted in the U.S. Army Nurse

Corps and was assigned to a psychiatric hospital in England, where she pioneered

innovative approaches to treating emotionally scarred and battle-fatigued soldiers. The

notes she took back with her provided the foundation of what would later become her

seminal work, "Interpersonal Relations in Nursing," published in 1952 (Canor

2006).

While in her career she advocated for nurses and believed they should be further

educated so they could provide therapeutic care to patients rather than baseline care

that nurses were practicing. She also taught interpersonal concepts, interviewing

techniques, individual, family and group therapy. Dr. Peplau’s interpersonal relationship theory emphasized the nurse-client

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