Bearing Witness: Informal Learning Among Critical Care Nurses in the Context of Traumatic Suffering
Open Access
- Author:
- Webb, Patricia Holland
- Graduate Program:
- Lifelong Learning and Adult Education
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- June 07, 2016
- Committee Members:
- Fred Michael Schied, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
Fred Michael Schied, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Esther Susana Prins, Committee Member
Davin Jules Carr-Chellman, Committee Member
Leonard Richard Lawlor, Outside Member - Keywords:
- adult learning
trauma
secondary traumatic stress
compassion fatigue
nurses
informal learning
workplace learning
emotional labor
phenomenology
psychoanalysis
critical theory
lifelong learning - Abstract:
- Secondary traumatic stress (STS), also known as compassion fatigue (CF), is a recognized source of suffering among nurses and many other types of human service workers who help people during or after traumatic life events. With regard to nurses, the field of study still lacks both conceptual clarity and theoretical grounding for identifying and responding to STS. The present research adopted a critically and psychodynamically enriched learning framework to examine the experience of STS in nurses. It sought to deepen and enhance the qualitative understanding of STS through a close phenomenological investigation not only of the experiences of a sample of critical care nurses, but also through the discernment of essential structures of mental constitution and informal learning that were evidenced among them. The study employed an adaptation of Giorgi’s (2009) modified Husserlian approach to phenomenological investigation. A triad of three critical care nurses who were employed in a single medical center were interviewed at length, both individually and in extended focus groups. Static data analysis was conducted consistent with Giorgi’s method, followed by an iterative process of genetic analysis that encompassed temporal and intersubjective dimensions of the nurses’ constitutional processes relative to their traumatic exposure. Essential structures of meaning were discerned and synthesized in relation to their experiences of STS. In addition, dynamic modes of informal learning were discerned. STS in this sample of nurses was a shattering experience that resisted comprehension and necessitated sustained support by attentive and nonjudgmental peer companions in order for traumatic exposure to be integrated successfully in a nurse’s consciousness. Helpful learning in response to STS involved a willingness to embrace the emotional dimension of life: gradually to claim traumatic events as one’s own, while actively reevaluating and reconstituting their possible meanings and embracing the necessity of mourning in communion with trusted peers.