The "Nightingale Effect" is a psychological phenomenon that occurs in the health care industry. It typically involves nurses and is named after Florence Nightingale, a famously dedicated 19th century nurse. The Nightingale effect refers to the common development of feelings that a patient may develop for his nurse and vice-versa. However, the Nightingale Effect is not restricted strictly to nurse practitioners.
Characteristics
The Nightingale Effect typically affects health care providers who establish a personal rapport with a patient. It refers to a natural tendency for a nurse or other practitioner to develop romantic or sexual feelings towards someone for whom they are responsible. While it is usually the health care worker who exhibits these feelings, the term is also used when the patient develops feelings for his caretaker.
Florence Nightingale
The term is named after a pioneer in the field of nursing, Florence Nightingale. She was a British nurse who lived during the 19th century. Nightingale worked during the Crimean War and historians praise her contributions to the British victory in that conflict. Her passion for her work and her relentless care for her patients had a profound effect on the field of nursing. Nightingale is often referred to as the "Lady with the Lamp," as she persistently made her rounds during the middle of the night with a lamp to monitor all her patients.
Countertransference
The process of caring and treating another person leads the health care worker to unconsciously confuse the requirements of her job with other personal desires in a psychological phenomenon knows as "countertransference." Sigmund Freud defined countertransference as "the patient's influence on [the analyst's] unconscious feelings..." This particular kind of emotional development is the cause of the Nightingale Effect.
In the Arts
Many films and novels famously reference or directly address the Nightingale effect. Ernest Hemingway's novel, "A Farewell to Arms," involves the developing relationship between a patient and his nurse. A plot point of the popular film, "Back to the Future," hinges on the Nightingale effect, and one of the characters in that story specifically mentions the phenomenon.
Comedic television series have also dramatized the Nightingale Effect in shows such as "Friends" and "Arrested Development." In both shows, women fell in love in coma patients. Comic book stories, including "Mutant X," "Batman," and "Wonder Woman" also developed story lines around the Nightingale Effect.
Counseling
It may be difficult for health care workers to resist the natural tendency toward emotional attachment to their patients. Freud discussed countertransference as it applied to the field of psychoanalysis where the Nightingale Effect is common. He considered this phenomenon a vulnerability that analysts could face and lead them to develop personal feelings towards their patients. Freud believed that caretakers must themselves have a frequent regimen of counseling to directly address any instances of countertransference they may experience.
