#crisisteamfail and boundary violation

#crisisteamfail and boundary violation

by | Nov 23, 2014 | mental health, NHS stuff, social media | 4 comments

Recent conversations on Twitter using the hashtag #crisisteamfail drill to the very heart of issues of agency (of individuals) and control (of institutions) which I have been researching on social networking sites over the last few years – the extent to which relationships between people accessing and providing mental health services and the mainstream media are being re-shaped and disrupted online. With one eye on the #crisisteamfail hashtag I also happened to be reading a short article by Michael Slade entitled Breaking down Boundaries* which seemed very pertinent. In the article he considers three different types of relationships formed between nurses and people they support: Detached – led by a nursing agenda with expert knowledge passed from nurse to patient Partnerships – collaboration with a recognition of shared expertise Real – personal relationships in which nurses relate to people accessing their service simply as people and where they (people) are in control of decisions. Whilst Slade argues that neither one type of relationship is better than another, he also acknowledges that real relationships are often cited by people living with mental health difficulties as very important. He suggests that real relationships can be a challenge to the mental health system because they disrupt ‘traditional ideas about professional behaviour, and the kinds of boundaries that lie between nurses and clients’. Slade goes on to argue that: ‘it should be accepted that behaviours that have traditionally been regarded as boundary violations may become acceptable’ and he cites examples of nurses sharing personal information about themselves or giving tokens as ways in which real relationships are nurtured. I’m quite taken with this...