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There have been few studies that have attempted to understand the world of one who
is mentally ill. This interpretive phenomenological study, which began as a study
of the meaning of being restrained, became a glimpse into mental illness. For this
study, 10 psychiatric patients were questioned in unstructured interviews. The taped
interviews were transcribed, and the resulting texts were analyzed with use of a modification
of an eight-stage process. Heideggerian hermeneutical phenomenology provided the philosophical
framework for this study. Two major themes—struggling and “why me?”—revealed what
it is like for the participants to live with a serious mental illness. These participants
struggled with the staff on the unit, with being restrained, and with the symptoms
of their illness. As part of their struggling, they asked, “Why me?”—a question that
could be interpreted existentially as, why are things the way they are and not some
other way? Finally, this study underscores how important it is for the nurse caring
for a psychiatric patient to enter into, and try to understand, the world of patients
with mental illnesses.
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© 1998 W.B. Saunders Company. Published by Elsevier Inc.
