Nursing and the Emergence of Egoless Care: A Discussion on Social Engineering in Mental Health

ABSTRACT

The narrowing of the diverse fields of psychiatry to just the single dimension of the biomedical model has resulted in a situation where professions with a focus on curing (psychiatrists and psychologists) are favoured over those with a focus on caring and encouraging near communities to care for each other (nurses). The social engineering of mental problems leads to a state of helplessness. This paper contributes to an understanding of the barriers to utilise the social resources of people with mental health problems and argues for forms of “indirect social engineering” and “egoless care,” and, ultimately, a rediscovery of nursing, using the mental health care in the Netherlands as a case study.

Declaration of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Acknowledgement

We are grateful to Dr. Sara Bayes, Associate Professor of midwifery at the Edith Cowan University, for the English proofreading of our manuscript.

Notes

2 We are aware of social engineering's connotations. In English, “social engineering” is not a positive phrase - even when “indirect” is added as adjective. Engineering has strong elements of control, manipulation and heartlessness (e.g., George Orwell). The original concept of Gerritsen (2011) in Dutch is “directe maakbaarheid & indirecte maakbaarheid”; probably best translated as “(in)direct make ability” or “(in)direct manufacturability,” referring to the capacity of the primary group to work on a solution that fits their culture. We have searched for all sorts of alternatives and have consulted several native English speakers but have not found an alternative for “indirect social engineering” yet.