Peplau's Ghost

Send us Fan Mail Anxiety, anger, brain fog, panic, “can’t focus” days, and a body that feels like it’s betraying you often get treated like separate problems in separate clinics. That split can be costly. We’re joined by Dr. Jennifer Wittman, a dually certified Family Nurse Practitioner and Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner, to talk about what changes when one clinician is trained to as...

Send us Fan Mail Fifteen minutes isn’t a clinical encounter, it’s a timer. We sit down with Dr. Karan Kverno to talk about what gets lost when psychiatric care becomes a rapid-fire “med check” and what PMHNPs can do to protect the relationship, the assessment, and the person in front of us. Karen shares her nontraditional training roots in stress response management, where behavioral learning, cog...

Send us Fan Mail A free clinic with two tables and one chair sounds almost too simple to work and that’s exactly why Mya’s story hits so hard. We talk with Maya, a dual-certified Family Nurse Practitioner and Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner, about how her life in Myanmar (Burma), her training across Thailand and the United States, and her commitment to transcultural nursing shaped a m...

Send us Fan Mail If you’ve ever watched mental health care drift into quick labels and quicker medication swaps, this conversation will feel like a reset. We sit down with Traci Powell, a dual-certified neonatal nurse practitioner and psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner, to talk about what trauma treatment looks like when it actually works, and what breaks when the system stops listening....

Send us Fan Mail The best psychiatry doesn’t start with a prescription, it starts with how safe a person feels across from you. We sit down with Dr. Elizabeth Francis, Duke faculty, clinician, author, and APNA board member, to talk about what happens when you take Hildegard Peplau seriously in modern PMHNP practice: the relationship is not an accessory to treatment, it becomes part of the treatmen...

Send us Fan Mail A Craigslist couch purchase leads to a first nursing job, and that job leads to a career in psychiatric mental health that eventually includes mentorship, education, and entrepreneurship. We talk with Dr. Lindsay Hill, PMHNP, about the nontraditional path that brought her from “psych was my least favorite rotation” to building a thriving professional community through her Psych NP...

Send us Fan Mail Someone reads your clinical notes and decides a child is “beyond repair.” Years later, that same kid is thriving, making art, keeping friends, and living a life that proves prognosis is not destiny. That tension between labels and lived outcomes drives our conversation with Dr. Fatima Ramos Marcuse, a developmental psychologist and board-certified psychiatric mental health nurse p...

Send us Fan Mail A psychiatric nursing system can add staff, add clinics, even add prescribing rights and still feel broken if the care stays fragmented. We sit down with Australian nurse leader Nathan Dart to get a grounded look at what is changing in mental health services across Australia, what still isn’t working, and why Peplau’s interpersonal focus keeps showing up as the missing ingredient...

Send us Fan Mail Lots of PMHNPs quietly carry the same worry: “I’m not a real therapist.” That belief doesn’t just shrink our scope, it also hides some of the most effective parts of psychiatric nursing. We sit down with Dr. Janine Panker, a Duke University alum and private practice PMHNP, to name what’s been in front of us all along: psychoeducation, supportive interventions, and relationship-bui...

Send us Fan Mail If you’ve ever felt the squeeze to move faster, prescribe quicker, and save the “real conversation” for someone else, this one is for you. We talk with Dr. Julie Roebuck from the University of Virginia about what it actually takes to keep psychotherapy central in psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner practice, especially with children and adolescents where trust, safety, an...

Send us Fan Mail You can feel it in clinics everywhere: patients are more complex, therapy access is tighter, and a prescription alone rarely solves what’s actually driving the suffering. We talk with Dr. Joy Lauerer and Dr. Hannah Robidoux from the Medical University of South Carolina about how psychiatric mental health nurse practitioners can bring psychotherapy back into everyday PMHNP practice...

Send us Fan Mail Policy shifts don’t happen in silence, and mental health nurses can’t afford to be invisible anymore. We sit down with Dr. Rhonda Wilson and Dr. Oliver Higgins to unpack how a global council of mental health nurses is claiming space at decision-making tables—and what that means for care on the ground, from rural Australia to big-city emergency departments. Their stories begin with...

Send us Fan Mail What if the most powerful tool in psychiatric care isn’t a prescription, but a relationship built with skill, ethics, and presence? We sit down with Dr. Kathleen McCoy to trace a career shaped by Hildegard Peplau’s interpersonal theory—from a 25-cent used book to leading practice, mentoring clinicians, and resetting norms in systems that push for eight-minute med checks. We talk a...

Send us Fan Mail What if the most powerful change in a “med check” isn’t the prescription, but the pause? We sit down with two newly minted PMHNPs who started in primary care and rural health, then shifted into psychiatry after seeing how often medication alone fell short. Their journey reveals a simple truth: when we pair pharmacology with person-centered psychotherapy—even inside 20–30 minute vi...

Send us Fan Mail A cigarette rolled on a classroom desk. A challenge to choose steak over hamburger. That’s how Hildegard Peplau first hooked a young Nancy Valentine—and set a course for a lifetime of nursing influence, autonomy, and unapologetic change. We sit down with Dr. Valentine to trace the real story behind the “psychiatric nurse of the century,” from working-class beginnings to rooms with...

Send us Fan Mail What if the most powerful clinical upgrade is the simplest one: clean your station, fix sleep, and show up prepared to do therapy that fits the brain in front of you? We sit down with Dr. Pam Wall—Navy veteran, psychiatric nurse practitioner, professor, and legal nurse consultant—to map a practical path through complex mental health care. From Marine divisions to university classr...

Send us Fan Mail What if stability starts with a warm relationship, a full fridge, and a Medicaid card—then the meds can do their job? We sit down with clinician Dr. Ann Roselle, DNP, and advocate Leslie Carpenter to unpack how serious mental illness care goes right or goes wrong, and why the difference often isn’t a new pill but a better system. We explore the real-world work of engagement when i...

Send us Fan Mail What happens to psychiatric mental health nursing when the job is squeezed into a prescriber’s chair and the classroom forgets its own theory? We sit down with Dr. Hugh McKenna to unpack a global reality: staffing shortages, overextended faculty, and policy moves that risk diluting mental health specialization just as community needs spike—especially among young people. Hugh takes...

Send us Fan Mail The number that surprised us wasn’t just the downloads. It was how clearly the most-played conversations pointed to one idea: listening changes more than medication ever could. We close the year with a wide-angle reflection and a deep dive into Sean’s journey from Navy psychiatric technician to nurse leader, tracing how psychotherapy, narrative, and cultural humility shape outcome...

Send us Fan Mail What if the most powerful part of therapy is the space between the boxes on our diagrams—the arrows where trust lives and change begins? We invited researcher and evaluator Dr. Melissa Chapman-Hayes to sit in the guest chair and talk candidly about why she stayed close to psychotherapy, how early mentorship shaped her lens, and why relational work is the quiet engine beneath good...

Send us Fan Mail What happens when a treatment designed to help may also carry injuries we rarely measure? We sit down with Sarah Price Hancock, co-founder and trustee of the Ionic Injury Foundation, to unpack ionic injury as a physiologic framework for understanding electrical exposure—including ECT—and the real-world consequences that can follow. Sarah shares her lived experience after 116 ECT s...

Send us Fan Mail What if the most powerful tool in mental health isn’t a pill or a protocol, but disciplined curiosity? We sit down with Marcus Evans —psychoanalyst, longtime psychiatric nurse, and trainer at the Tavistock—to explore how a psychoanalytic lens can make care more humane for people living with psychosis, borderline states, and severe distress. Marcus takes us from old asylum wards to...

Send us Fan Mail A busy inpatient hallway, a tight clock, and a patient who needs more than a prescription—this is where the art of psychiatric nursing matters most. We sit down with Dr. Shawn Gallagher, a dual-certified PMHNP and FNP, former ISPN president, and retired Army officer, to explore how small choices—eye contact, posture, sitting at the bedside—turn brief encounters into meaningful car...

Send us Fan Mail A sailor on a dark deck, a torn letter, and a young corpsman learning to spot distress without a sound—that’s where our conversation begins. From that simple observation grew Stress First Aid, a peer-driven framework that replaces stigma with language people can use in real time: green, yellow, orange, red. We sit down with Dr. Richard Westfall to unpack how one napkin sketch—and...

Send us Fan Mail What if the most powerful change in mental health care happens in the space between two people—guided by skill, grounded in science, and held with genuine regard? That’s where we go with Dr. Sara Jones, a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner, researcher, and clinic owner who builds care around psychotherapy as a core competency, not an optional extra. We start with the spa...