ABSTRACT
Psychiatric-mental health nursesa (PMHNs) spend their working lives sailing in an ocean of emotions. As they strive to build alliances with distressed and psychologically troubled people, affective riptides constantly threaten their own sense of emotional balance. In the space of one shift, they can encounter the abject despair of deep depression, witness the confusion and chaos of psychosis, or share in the hallelujah of someone’s recovery. Shaken by the turbulence of madness, PMHNs are not always sure whether the disturbance springs from without or within.
