From self-reflection to shared recognition: Reconceptualising mental health nursing as an intersubjective phenomenon

Abstract

Existing challenges to the legitimacy of mental health nursing in the UK and beyond have stimulated a critical self-reflection and discourse around the mental health nursing role, forcing the profession to question its identity and to critically re-evaluate its position within the wider healthcare arena. In this discussion paper, I suggest that the current difficulties in conceptualising mental health nurse identity arise from our role being inherently interwoven with the distinctive challenges and unique needs of our service users. Emerging from this idea is that the ‘being’ (and the ‘doing’) of mental health nursing is firmly situated within the sphere of intersubjective relations. Drawing upon Hegel’s ideas of reciprocal recognitive relations, to support the notion that our profession’s role and purpose is better understood when defined in relation to the work that we do with our service users, I argue that it is in the understanding (and even embracing) of intersubjectivity as a core principle of mental health nursing, where we might, not just better understand ourselves, but also know how to shift asymmetric relations with our service users, towards those which are more commensurate and mutually beneficial.