This book brings together a collection of the author's papers which, when taken as a whole, address many of the mostpressing issues in psychiatric nursing today. The papers are linked and present the 'backbone' of the author's philosophy of nursing. Each of the chapters deals either with the search to define the theoretical and practical basis of psychiatric nursing, or addresses more general issues in nursing which have some specific bearing on the practice of psychiatric nursing. Each chapter is followed by an invited commentary from respected psychiatric nurses, who were given the brief to draw out some of the main points of the chapter and put them in focus for today's nurses.Dynamic, charismatic author This book brings together the authors major works for the first time