Law assignment help on: Violence
Introduction
Violence in any form is a repulsive act; something which cannot be accepted by the object of the violence under any circumstances. Violence always includes an external agency that acts upon somebody else and therefore it might create undesirable situations for the person who subjected to violence. Violence is a product of the human thought process and thus it is exercised when the situations cannot be handled by an individual, this way the person might create certain problems or the people around him. The violence can be physical as well as mental, and one of the known forms of violence is Horizontal violence. Horizontal violence is indexical of hostility and aggression towards somebody another group or community. The horizontal violence is primarily critical,, it is not physical but yet takes place in such ways which leaves the person mentally scattered and unstable because the individuals is not treated in the manner in which he/she should be treated. Usually this violence can be seen at the workplaces where the people are accustomed to work under the hierarchical set ups. Whenever this kind of the violence is seen then usually there are a lot of interruptions, the individuals who lie at the lower level of the work place system are usually undermined, and are rendered unacknowledged (Hinds R. & Harley J. (2001)). The focus of this paper is that the horizontal violence is popular in the nursing profession, and that how the fresh graduate nurses become the object of this violence.
Concept of Horizontal Violence
This concept of Violence firstly evolved itself from Paulo Freire’s piece of work on oppression in the late 20th century. He defined the Horizontal violence, as something that defined the behaviour of those oppressed individuals who had to cope up with the feelings of being disarmed, hopelessness, helplessness and further fuelling the negativity and aggression upon each other when they exhaust their power to act against the social dominance or the group dominance upon them. He also points out that it is the archetype that has been created by the medical institutes only who have always been reinforcing this idea of the dominance in the nursing profession. This violence though occurs at the workplaces wide across the world but it is primarily found in the medical profession and this is something which occurs in routine. They are the roots of the system who in fact promote the trend of stereotyping and therefore this boundary under which they want to circumscribe the junior nurses they get that negative image of the profession that keeps away many medical students to take up this profession (Taylor, B. (2001)).
It is seen to be overt in nature and the type of violence that is non-physical this includes heavy criticism of the individuals hoc are subjected to commands, they are the object of sabotaging, their skills are undermined, and they remain the scapegoats and have to compromise over the ethical circumstances too. This is the unfortunate and the harsh realistic picture of the fresh graduate nurses in the nursing profession. According to Roberts (1983) it has been as “eating our young”. Horizontal Violence has occurred in the profession in both the secret and the open environment and thus has been manifesting itself very much in this inter-group conflicts. It can be done by bullying the junior nurses, by teasing them either by making faces or imitating them so that they could be irritated. The use of the commands, the criticism of the body language and speaking skills could give rise to this violence. The way the authority is exercised in the form of violence it is unkind, not courteous in nature and it eats away the cohesion from the present atmosphere. The horizontal violence therefore becomes evident by the use of the belittling postures and gestures, the frequent gossiping or back-biting of a fresher, passing the sarcastic comments and finding the fault and by the attempt to control other’s behaviour. It is damaging and ultimately destructive in nature and it takes away the individual from being emotionally, physically and spiritually stable.
Horizontal Violence among nursing Professionals
The working professionals in the healthcare profession can be subjected to this violence when they are new in the practice of nursing. Lately, there have occurred some unique patterns of behaviour seen with regard to the new graduates who work under experienced nursing professionals. This type of violence is seen to be occurring in the healthcare institutes where the harmful actions and the attitudes are built towards the junior nurses in which various bad words or the irritating acts take place. In fact there have been many theories which tend to explain such a behaviour among the nursing professionals it says that the work pressure or the inability to cope up with stress leads to the higher level of the exasperation among the nursing individuals and so it is seen that they escape through such violence by practicing the same on the others. Usually it is seen that the objects of this violence is the female population in the nursing system. the prey to this horizontal violence are the females who are the newly graduates and they require some extra attention in terms of the work that they do, being the newly graduates they are the trainees who require some space to grow in this profession so that they can gradually come up to the expected level, for that the nurses would require some scope to even make mistakes so that they can learn better (American Association of Colleges of Nursing. (2008)). They are the ones who are put at the hands of the doctors and the trained nurses and it is seen that instead of helping them out instead they command them over the things. One of the qualitative analysis as conducted by Farrell in the year 1997 about the nature of the nurses with regard to the level of aggression and the degree of the same which is present in the colleagues too. The qualitative evaluation brought out that all the 29 participants were finding the inter-staff conflict was far more upsetting than the pressure which one gets from the patients outside.
It in fact becomes paradoxical according to Farell, because this atmosphere stands in contradiction from what it should be, where it stands for ‘care’ for the others, on the other hand it involves itself in bullying and mentally torturing the other. In the year 1997 one of the quantitative analysis of more than 250 nurses brought that horizontal violence does occur in the profession and the most frequent type of violence was found among the co-workers only. Out of the total participants in the quantitative analysis, the 30% of them could somehow balance their work by coping up with the aggression around them whereas the 25% indicated that the same was a huge stress creating element in the working atmosphere. In the year 2003, Dunn brought out that the nursing who were working in the surgical set up were highly subjected to interference, the constant undermining, and the destruction of their veracity. According to the analysis it was seen that there were 145 respondents who came up and out of them 84% complained that they were pressurised to do other’s works and more than 70% of them were not even acknowledged for the work which they did. Also, to add to the atrocious conditions of the new graduates, around 80% of them had been insulted in front of others.
The conflict that emerged out of the nursing system was due to the violence in there and it suggested that this could only occur because of the lack of expression from the oppressed group and the hesitance in communicating what they want. According to the author of ‘Crosscurrents: Against cultural narration in nursing’, believes that there is a cultural narrative in the nursing profession which is subordinate and to go against the prevailing fundamentals actually requires the initiative taking capacity and willpower to take actions, but it is something which the nurses lack at the time of their recruitment (Kovner, C. T., et. al 2007). As to by the authors of the journal named Nurse Educator it is that there was higher level of the stressors which were found in the academic preparation for the course of nursing than they would in the initial year of their employment but according to the statistics and various studies which have been discussed above this point remains open to debate. In a way for these authors the new graduates get exposed to the trends of this profession as they work under the guidance of the preceptors and when such relationship was not successful then it would be obvious that the student would be rendered disheartened and perturbed and this would automatically let the individual to have a disillusioned impression about the profession in which one gets engaged.
Among many social thinkers and the medical professionals, the other successful names are McKenna, Poole, and Coverdale (2003) who investigated the potential psychological effect of the horizontal violence among the fresh graduates in the initial year of their nursing practice and they were investigated on the parameters like the rude behaviour, the use of the abusive language and the humiliation that they went through as a product of teasing or constant imitating. According to the calculated data it was seen that 31% of the new graduates in nursing felt that there value wasn’t realised by the preceptors, 17% were not given proper chance to explore the opportunities which were helpful to them and more than 15% felt that there was everything mechanical and no value was given to the emotions of the nursing professionals. In fact it is astonishing to see that only 12% of the distressed individuals went through the proper counselling and most of the cases were avoided who deserved proper counselling sessions because of the mental breakdown in the profession.
New Gradutes falling prey to Horizontal ViolenceThe popular authors Mamchur and Myrick who presented their work on preceptorship and the conflict in the profession explored that how there is a valid scope for conflict in the working atmosphere. Their investigation brought that 234 individuals was the study population out of which more than 50% who were frequently experiencing conflict in the department that they worked in and around 35% of the respondents had experience a prolonged period for which they felt strain. The new graduate nurses were asked about the factors which stimulated the conflict among the working professionals, and the majority of the individuals went with the fact that as they could not reach the expectations of the preceptor they were thrown onto teasing and humiliation and rest of the study population reported that it was disparaging to the self image of the individual after a limit (Hutchinson, M et al. (2006)).
On the parameter of self-esteem, it was seen that bullying was practiced in the profession which attacked the confidence level and the dignity of the nursing professionals. According to 90% of the nurses the process that involved training to become a nurse was depressing and it was mentally damaging in nature. The experience was much negative that they had gone through and thus it somehow resulted in the negative ramification of the nurses. The study population even came up with the examples from their personal lives in which many students brought that they saw many nurses who made the illegible use of their designation and then indulged in bullying their subordinates (Lacey, T. A., & Wright, B. (2009)). On the other hand the nursing students fall prey to this concept of bullying by the senior nurses, and consequently they felt that they had no identity and so were powerless.In fact it has been noticed that horizontal violence is not being checked and therefore the nurses have been accustomed to bullying constantly. Thus for them the instruction which the government is that first the nurses should maintain a healthy perception about themselves and the profession which they have chosen so that the bullying and the emotional attacks by the opposite party do not become personal. In case such a situation is aligned in the prospects then it becomes the duty of the individual to share the same with a trusted colleague or a friend so that they also remain aware of the potential problems that could occur in future. The communication process would let the individuals to have an explicit idea about Horizontal Violence and it can also lead to the confirmation that actually the same is going on and in such case the witnesses could also be gathered together at one place when needed (Longo, J., & Sherman, R. O. (2007)). The horizontal violence is practiced widely and almost is seen as dependent on the ongoing medical practices and the communication in the key solution to it that might help the victims of this emotional turmoil to have a breath of relief. So, counselling also plays a big role in letting the victims of the horizontal violence to actually know that they should initiate the communication and the conversation with the fellow professionals.
Foucault’s philosophy in Power roles
The same concept can also be associated with the 20th century French philosopher and social thinker Michael Foucault’s perspective on Horizontal violence which involved that there exists a dynamic relationship between the holders of power in the society and the knowledge that is inherent in that society. the philosophy of Foucault revolved around the power and knowledge which according to him were intimately related and yet independent. This is how he believed that the power which and individual has and the related amount of knowledge which the individual has determines the activities which the individual performs and thus defines his existence in the society (Curtis, J. (2007)). He philosophically points that power is not something which is exercised by somebody one or some group but it is exercised within different relationships and that too in a number of ways, as he phrased that “the exercise of power can be resisted”. He asserts that if power or the authority exists then simultaneously it creates the scope for resistance too. And he therefore calls it a cycle of power and resistance that goes further and on; therefore exercising the relationships among the people in a society (Dunn, H. (2003)). Therefore this can be seen in relation to the behaviour of the nurses who are preceptors and the way they indulge in exercising their relationship. This philosophical thought by Foucault in fact brought that the nurses have a full right and scope to exercise their resistance against the power to which they are an object. In fact it can be said that this thought is in fact critiquing that behaviour of the graduate of the nurses who fail to resist if injustice is imparted to them. In fact the justification could be sought by the introduction to another concept called Panopticon which is an 18th century design which was a prison that was used in the grouped cells and it had a central viewing tower which monitored the activities of the prisoners, similarly according to his point of view Panopticon was a metaphor for the power roles in the society and the surveillance of its inhabitants. Therefore it is a psychological and the natural built up of the people that they feel it compulsory to work under commands and surveillance and thus become the volunteer subjects of the power.
In applying his philosophy in nursing it is important to see that science is one traditional domain that is purely appropriate that can claim to provide a rationale and thought. Then according to this belief which Foucault have about the traditional significance of science; even it can examine the oppressive practices which are seen to be executed in the health care system and that the same time it should also be encouraging the nurses to know their self and also recognising their specific ways of knowing and act accordingly at the workplace. This in fact can be used by the nurses to be used as an approach at the workplace. To illustrate the same it can be said that the nursing approach could be maintained by imparting the nursing education and that different methods could be imparted to the nursing students (King-Jones, M. (2011)). This philosophical approach in the nursing literature brings out that in an academic set up the hierarchical structures are maintained with respect to the knowledge system and the power roles in a society and the members of the nursing department are thus expected to support the traditions and the following methods in the domain. Therefore to explore that from where actually these traditions came and who had set up this trend for exercising power down the hierarchy there is seen a need to see that from where this tradition actually emerged (Freshwater, D. (2000)). For that certain questions need to get answer like do the students have any new knowledge or are they only mugging upon the facts that have already been established in the health care system? Do the nursing professionals have been working according to the contemporary fashion so that the professional standards could be enhanced or are they simply beating around the already set up trends like the application of the traditional scientific methods?
Resolving the issue of Horizontal Violence In order to address the issue of the horizontal violence it is further brought that some strategies have to be employed in this, called Journaling; this method would include the making of the detailed and a proper bifurcated timeline of the unpleasant events that must have happened to the graduate nurses. Secondly this strategy would also be helpful as it can act as an active emotional outlet for the victims, as writing down the vents would in a away be a communicating exercise and therefore would help greatly in shedding away the mental distress which the nurses might have had suffered because of the horizontal violence. This documentation would not only be the statement of the occurred event or the incident but would be a detailed collection of the incident like the individuals who also experienced or saw the incident while it was happening. The blockades which the preceptor created for the victim like the bullying or teasing through the email or the text messages, so such material could be saved to turn into a better position later it has been suggested that the Horizontal violence should not be deterred on and therefore the keeping up of the aggression and the assertiveness becomes necessary at the time when an authority is exercising this kind of violence on the subordinates (Farrell G. (2001)). Thus confrontation is something which can be the sole solution to this problem, and the best is to confront the person during the exercise of the power roles.
The conversation that occurs should remain both factual so that the individual does not feel short of the factors that might defend the person a great deal. While telling about the problem that one would be suffering from the focus should be on the incidents that have taken place and how frequently rather than bringing that how was the feeling that he/she got after experiencing the same. In that case the report that one would provide to the other colleague would sound more professional, factual and formal in its nature (De Bellis, A et al (2001)). Thus it is highly being encouraged that the people should bring in the cases of the horizontal violence at forth and it would in fact let the future nurses to change their viewpoint about the same profession. Also there should be the presence if the proper channels which can mediate to help out the victims of the same violence. This way the people would be avoided to get into deeper trouble as by the presence of the proper channels they would be saved from engaging into any action or the retaliation of the bullying that is exercised on them initially (Coverdale, J. et al (2001)).. Also the staff members of the department can also be called in together for the meeting and also shall be made to think over the matter and should be instructed that they are not supposed to exercise any kind of sabotaging or authority on the individual. There has to be a policy for the medical professionals also that if the same rule and the regulation is not followed by the members of the department up the hierarchy then they would b penalised or any other disciplinary action could be taken against them. it is the employers who should know that there have to be ever running support services in the medical atmosphere and those services also have to be readily available for the new graduates to make use of. These services would keep them away from any mental pressure. The program would include counselling of the new graduates who would provide them enough of the opportunities to utter out all that they feel and might have had any bitter experiences. The emphasis thus has to be there at the violence preventing parameter, and that can be achieved by providing the proper training to staff which in turn shall be directed to deal with the junior staff and the fresh graduates with maturity and should in fact be encouraging them to learn better and perform rather than competing with them. The implementation of the training program should be in all the professional facets like at the surgical workplace, the curriculum and the schedule of the undergraduate nurses and also that special development programs should be made for the potential nurses in the initial year off their nursing practice as the initial year is a much testing phase of a nurse’s life as the responsibility is heavy and also he/she ahs to go by the maintained standard of professionalism while working within a group which is beyond hierarchy (McKenna et al. (2003)). Such programs can monitor the behaviour of the individuals effectively and therefore are very effective in reducing any kind of violence among the groups working as the nursing professionals.
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