What's in a Name?

national | worker & community struggles and protests | opinion/analysis Tuesday August 17, 2004 12:38 by Sean - impero 0879739945

Stigma.

Does stigma arise from lack of truth, clarity and precision in language?

Review of the Title of Registered Psychiatric Nurse (RPN).


An Bord Altranais in a recent consultation document says:

"The proposed title change to registered mental health nurse is part of a continued professional development and empowerment process for nurses in the mental health services that offers the potential of addressing old nursing problems in a new way. The title ‘mental health nurse’ is unique and meaningful but more importantly it reflects the focus of nurses on mental health and recovery."

The following range of choices is proposed by An Bord:

· Registered Mental Health Nurse (RMHN)
· Registered Nurse (Mental Health) RN (Mental Health)
· Registered Nurse Mental Health (RNMH)

Before the issue is decided - and it is the first change of title, for nurses in the field, since 1951 - let me say that the term "mental health" has already been degraded in common modern parlance. It is euphemistic and mendacious and everyone knows it really means "mental illness."

No. The old term (Registered Mental Nurse) used before 1951 would be preferable except for the fact that it is ambiguous in the sense that, taken literally now, it means that the nurse (as opposed to the patient) is "mental."

So I suggest a different approach. Could we use the terms "Registered Mind Nurse"?

The only other alternative that I can think of is to coin a completely new word and use it in the title e.g. "Registered Reko Nurse" where "reko" means the kind of varied and flexible work nurses in the field of mental illness are expected to carry out now and into the future.

Yours sincerely

Sean Crudden
Secretary
IMPERO (Irish Mental Patients’ Educational and Representative Organisation)