devote to the larger profession of nursing.
Throughout her career, Peplau actively contributed
to the American Nurses’ Association (ANA) by
serving on various committees and task forces. She
is the only person who has been both the executive
director and president of ANA. Peplau served on
the ANA committee that wrote the Social Policy
Statement. For the first time in nursing’s history,
nursing had a phenomenological focus—human
responses.
Peplau held 11 honorary degrees. In 1994, she
was inducted into the American Academy of
Nursing’s Living Legends Hall of Fame. She was
named one of the 50 great Americans by Marquis
Who’s Whoin 1995. In 1997, Peplau received the
Christiane Reiman Prize, nursing’s most prestig-
ious award. In 1998, she was inducted into the ANA
Hall of Fame.
Internationally, Peplau was an advisor to the
World Health Organization (WHO); she was aand the importance of the nurse-patient relation-
ship to psychiatric nurses. The workshops also
provided a forum from which Peplau could pro-
mote advanced education for psychiatric nurses.
Her belief that psychiatric nurses must have ad-
vanced degrees encouraged large numbers of psy-
chiatric nurses to seek master’s degrees and
eventual certification as psychiatric–mental health
clinical specialists.
During her career as a nursing educator, a total
of 100 students had the opportunity to study with
Peplau. These students have become leaders in psy-
chiatric nursing. Many have gone on to earn doc-
toral degrees, becoming psychoanalysts, writing
prolifically in the field of psychiatric nursing, and
entering and influencing the academic world. Their
influence has resulted in the integration of the
nurse-patient relationship and the concept of anxi-
ety into the culture of nursing. In 1974, Peplau re-
tired from Rutgers. This allowed her more time to
60 SECTION II Evolution of Nursing Theory: Essential Influences
THE EXPERIENCE OF A SECOND-GENERATION PEPLAU STUDENT
In 1987, I began doctoral study at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.At that time, Dr. Elizabeth Morrison
was assigned as my faculty advisor and chaired my dissertation committee. Dr. Morrison is one of the 100 stu-
dents who studied directly with Peplau and is a Peplau scholar. Peplau described her as “a professor’s delight: in-
telligent, responsible, responsive, career-oriented and always cheerful...she has taken her own career and
further professional development seriously and has contributed greatly to the advancement of the profession”
(Peplau, personal communication, September 16, 1998).After Dr. Morrison’s graduation from Rutgers, she main-
tained a relationship with Peplau and has tested Peplau’s theory in practice (Morrison, 1992; Morrison, Shealy,
Kowalski, LaMont, & Range, 1996).
While beginning work on my dissertation, I began to read the writings of Peplau more carefully. Like most
psychiatric nurses, I applied her interpersonal theory in my clinical practice. I had actually been taught inter-
ventions developed by Peplau as an undergraduate nursing student in psychiatric nursing. However, like many
nurses educated before the 1980s, I was not told that a theorist named Peplau was guiding my practice. This I
discovered after graduating from my baccalaureate program, when I began to read Peplau’s work, especially her
writings on anxiety and hallucinations (Peplau, 1952, 1962). In the course of reading her work with the “eye” of
a doctoral student, I discovered her paper on theory development that had been presented at the first Nursing
Theory Conference in 1969. In that paper, Peplau (1989a) described the process of practice-based theory de-
velopment. Reading this work was very exciting. In the paper, Peplau described a methodology for developing
theory in practice.This will be described more completely later in this chapter.
As my dissertation proposal developed, Dr. Morrison encouraged me to send it to Peplau for her to read.
This idea made me extremely anxious, but Dr. Morrison persisted. She had talked to Peplau and Peplau said that
she would be glad to read my proposal.This began a correspondence with Peplau that continued for years, until
her death in 1999. She enriched my professional life, and I am honored that she was interested in what I thought
and what I was doing.When considering the link between Peplau, Elizabeth Morrison, and me, I consider myself
a second-generation student of Peplau. From the beginning of her research career, Peplau provided guidance, di-
rection, and feedback—answering many questions, sharing resources, and providing contacts with other psychi-
atric nurse researchers. She shared her knowledge and expertise with countless numbers of psychiatric nurses.
In fact, this has been a hallmark of her professional life—sharing, developing, and responding to nurses as they
sought knowledge.