ADVANCING HEALTH-CARE PRACTICE





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1.4     Helen's Story

Power and Control

A commonly-held social belief is that physical and sexual abuse are more serious forms of abuse than verbal, psychological, social, cultural or other forms of abuse. Research conducted with women experiencing abuse corrects this belief, reporting that all forms of abuse have the intended effect of reducing freedom, dignity and human rights, imposing unjustifiable punishment on victims for the sake of reinforcing the perpetrator's power, removing opportunities for expression of needs, opinions and ideas and creating an atmosphere of fear, intimidation and unpredictability.

Although Dr. Dale isn't physically or sexually abusing the nursing staff, the cumulative effect of the range of tactics that Dr. Dale uses to maintain power and control works to intimidate, control and demean the nursing staff.

Review the Power and Control Wheel and insert Dr. Dale's tactics into the wheel in the most appropriate area to identify the different forms of abusive tactic that Dr. Dale is using against the nurses.

Click here to View the Power and Control Wheel
>> ACTIVITY

Fill in the following blanks, identifying the type of abuse and the tactics that Dr. Dale used.

Psychological abuse
Emotional Abuse
Intellectual Abuse
Verbal Abuse
Other


It is through exploring our own experiences from a perspective of power and control that health care providers may find an opportunity to articulate our experiences differently. Research identifies that abuse is directed against nurses from a number of sectors. In order of frequency, abuse comes from:

HIGH
  • physicians
  • nursing colleagues
  • nursing management
  • patient families
LOW
  • patients themselves.

(Cox, 1987; Araujo & Sofield, 1999; Rosenstein, 2002)



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