What is it like being a psychiatric nurse? Is it as challenging as everyone says?

Its not something you learn in nursing school You must have a love for psychiatric nursing and you cant expect quick results or cures It's almost like a sixth sense that you acquire after doing it for years and you just know instinctively who really needs your help and who doesn't Like any nursing profession, it can be a frustrating, thankless job, but when you see just one person that benefits from medication and therapy its worth it

Yes, it requires patience, compassion, and empathy. You can never take anything personal if you do the patient can’t get the help they need.

I currently work with DID and PTSD patients and love it though it is quite a challenge sometimes. I worked 21 years in critical care trauma and this is as or more interesting to me. You have to choose your facility carefully though and some specialties are less about treatment and more about caretaking so be aware of this.

I was an inpatient psychiatric nurse for 25 years, and it is definitely its own specialty, with its own skill set. Therapeutic communication and good boundary setting are essential. Preventing burn out is also necessary, so a work/life balance and decompressing are crucial to working in the inpatient setting. There is usually an interdisciplinary team approach to care, and good collaboration skills are required. Medication side effects can also be serious, so a knowledge of therapeutic levels along with signs and symptoms of toxicity is important. Patients can be impulsive, labile or a danger to themselves or others. If patients can’t be verbally de-escalated, it may be necessary to contain a patient physically or restrain a patient, and careful protocols must be followed to preserve patient rights. So yes, it is challenging, but it can be very rewarding to see patients return to functioning and learn to manage their mental illness.