Mental health nurses overcoming adversity: A discursive review

The mental health nursing profession has experienced various challenges since its inception. This discursive review considers these challenges, including how mental health nurses have and can continue to overcome adversity as individuals and as a profession. The discussion examines the influence of the profession’s historical involvement in institutionalization and coercive care; the continuing impact of stigma; and the increasing demand for mental health services, amidst chronic staff shortages. Collectively, mental health nurses must harness strong therapeutic relationships, intra- and multi-disciplinary collaboration, personal and professional resilience, education that prepares them for the future, and sector-wide planning and innovation, to respond positively to these challenges. These approaches will support mental health nurses to overcome adversity and achieve positive outcomes for the profession and people with the lived experience of mental illness.