8 Tips for Dealing with Patient Attachment as a Nurse

Patient attachment is a challenging aspect of a career in nursing. Often, you may face confronting situations that force you to show a level of empathy without getting too attached. On the other end of the scale, it can be hard to know how to detach yourself from your patients once you clock off or if their condition deteriorates.

Although tricky, patient attachment can be dealt with and managed with the right tools and knowledge.

What is detachment?

As a nurse, you are deal with a range of patients and see some of them at their worst. This can take an emotional toll on your physical and mental health if you don’t deal with it properly. Healthy detachment is the process by which we emotionally disconnect from negative, toxic emotions or behaviours to protect and care for ourselves. Failing to do so may result in burnout and other conditions such as compassion fatigue.

Generally speaking, nurses and healthcare professionals are extremely compassionate – they have to be for the types of situations they deal with. An unhealthy level of patient attachment can lead to compassion fatigue, also referred to as secondary traumatic stress (STS). Nurses who don’t know how to detach healthily from their work can sometimes even go too far and cut themselves off completely from others emotionally or by getting resentful.

If you’re not practising healthy detachment techniques, it’s time to reassess.

Set boundaries

At the start of your nursing career, you need to set some boundaries. While this doesn’t involve clocking in and out like a robot and working somewhere in between, it’s about cutting yourself some slack and appreciating you’re only human. Going above and beyond what’s required of you for one of your patients should only be something that’s done very rarely. Make sure you’re still putting yourself first and taking the time to do the things you enjoy. This means you’re allowed to say no to working that extra shift or going to our partner’s, cousin’s, dog’s birthday party.

Use rituals

Rituals and routines can help to unwind and detach from your day. Some suggestions for routines include:

• Taking a hot shower or bath after a shift to wash away the day
• Meditate to clear your mind
• Don’t discuss a client outside of work, no matter how tempting it is to vent to a partner or family member
• Pause before you enter your house after work and say aloud, “I enjoyed caring for you today, [name or names of clients], and now that you are safely in someone else’s care, I am shifting my attention to my family.”

Prepare for the worst

Unfortunately, death is a normal part of life. If you work in a setting such as age care or palliative care, death can be a common occurrence. If you know a patient is nearing the end of their life, begin a gentle detachment process for yourself. If you feel as though you’ve become too attached to a patient, slowly start to pull back a little bit. This doesn’t mean radically changing how you care for them, but rather emotionally starting to detach to soften the blow when they inevitably do pass. Shift your focus from the patient and focus on the clinical things the patient needs you to attend to.

Connect with people around you

Your colleagues and people around you are your biggest supporters. Lean on them whenever you need advice or support around how to handle a situation. Colleagues who have gone through the same thing will be able to provide advice on how they’ve dealt with similar situations, while family and friends can offer emotional support as well as a good distraction. If you find you aren’t coping, it’s important to reach out to a professional. Lifeline and Beyond Blue are 24/7 crisis support hotlines that are free for everyone.

Keep it professional

If you’re spending all day with patients, it’s hard not to develop a relationship with them. While you’re spending a large amount of time with them, it’s important to keep your relationship professional. Set boundaries by leaving any client concerns at the door when you walk out. Remind yourself that you’re not obligated to think about the client outside of your professional relationship. This will help you detach when you leave work for the day.

Write it down

Keeping a journal is one way to clear your mind. Keep one with you and at the end of each shift, write down everything that happened – good and bad – and how you felt about it. Research shows that writing about stressful events helps you to come to terms with them, acting as a stress management tool, thus reducing the impact of these stressors on your physical health. Although writing notes on your phone can help, nothing beats the old-fashioned pen and paper method!

Practice mindfulness

Mindfulness is another powerful tool used to clear your mind and relieve stress. It’s the idea of learning how to be fully present and engaged in the moment, aware of your thoughts and feelings without distraction or judgement. Although it can be difficult for those who have busy minds, regular mindfulness practice does wonders for your health – both mental and physical. It can help relieve stress, treat heart disease, lower blood pressure, reduce chronic pain, improve sleep and aid mental health issues such as anxiety and depression.

Eat well and exercise

Your lifestyle is another important aspect of detachment. Keeping a balanced, healthy diet and exercising regularly will help stimulate your mind and give you a good night’s sleep. This will allow you to feel refreshed and recharged for the shift ahead. Avoid harmful coping mechanisms such as drugs, smoking and alcohol, as these can trigger unwanted and unhealthy habits.

Patient attachment is a challenge every nurse faces. It’s easy to have a soft spot or close bond with patients you see every day but becoming too invested can cause negative long-term side effects. Learning to detach yourself from work is crucial for nurses them to continue to function at the highest possible level.

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