ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the key concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book describes a form of therapeutic communication which has not been theorized previously in psychiatric nursing but which seems to hold promise as a means for engaging acutely ill institutionalized patients who have not responded to more conventional therapeutic approaches. Gestural bridging harnesses the imaginative tools associated more often with poets and artists than with conventional nursing-care planning and understandings of patient care needs. Gestural bridging represents a form of aesthetically grounded therapeutic communication which has links to play therapy with children and with some of the themes which figure centrally in psychoanalytic approaches to treatment. Gestural bridging is a metaphoric process of therapeutic communication which exemplifies these ideals as it connects psychiatric nursing to some of the foundational principles of other psychotherapeutic disciplines.
