Understanding Psychology for Nursing Students

Jan de Vries works as an Assistant Professor at the School of Nursing and Midwifery, Trinity College Dublin. His teaching experience in psychology goes back over 30 years and includes the development, design and implementation of applied psychology modules and programmes in the Netherlands, Germany, Ireland, the UK and USA. He has lived in the Netherlands, Ireland and California and worked in several universities. He has also worked as a piano teacher, stress a trauma consultant and coordinated programmes of dialogue at the Glencree Centre of Reconciliation in Ireland. He has been working in the School of Nursing and Midwifery in Trinity College Dublin since 2007 and has worked tirelessly on developing the interface between psychology and nursing in a wide variety of contexts and at all relevant levels. This has included advising the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Ireland on psychology for nursing registration, curriculum development within Trinity College and a myriad of teaching modules at undergraduate and postgraduate level. His research interests include psychology of nursing, cognitive dissonance, mental health interventions, hand washing and several other health care related topics. He has published reviews of a number of nursing psychology texts. Jan and Fiona have collaborated on several publications on the cusp of psychology and nursing.Fiona Timmins works as an Associate Professor at the School of Nursing and Midwifery, Trinity College Dublin.  In her role as a nurse academic she has published more than 100 publications in peer reviewed journals and has written or co-authored seven nursing text books.  She has presented widely internationally (more than 150 papers) including many Key Note presentations and workshops. She is currently one of the Editors of Journal of Nursing Management and acts as a reviewer for several peer reviewed journals, sitting on the editorial board of many of these. Research interests include professional nursing issues, nurse education, spirituality and reflection.  Her teaching skills were recognised in several awards including a Provost’s Teaching Award in 2004 (http://www.tcd.ie/CAPSL/awards/provost/archive/#PTA2005). She has several degrees and awards including a PhD in nursing from the University of Glamorgan.

• IntroductionPsychology as a field of study and why nurses need to know about itUnderstanding ourselves from various psychological perspectivesThe core of our functioning and how we make sense of our worldHow we develop and how we learnConsciousness and memoryThinking, motivation, feeling, actionWe are social animalsThe psychology of health and stressThe crisis of illnessThe psychology of care in practice