Hildegard Peplau

In the early 1900s, the autonomous, nursing-controlled, Nightingale era schools came to an end.

Schools became controlled by hospitals, and formal "book learning" was discouraged.

Hospitals and physicians saw women in nursing as a source of free or inexpensive labor.

Exploitation was not uncommon by a nurse's employers, physicians, and educational providers.

Peplau's entry into the nursing profession was not prompted by romantic notions of caring for the sick.

In Reading, she completed courses at a business school and worked as a store clerk, payroll clerk, and book keeper while completing courses in a business school.

Hildegard E. Peplau (September 1, 1909 – March 17, 1999) was an American nurse and the first published nursing theorist since Florence Nightingale.

She created the middle-range nursing theory of interpersonal relations, which helped to revolutionize the scholarly work of nurses.

As a primary contributor to mental health law reform, she led the way towards humane treatment of patients with behavior and personality disorders.

Hildegard was born in Reading, Pennsylvania to immigrant parents of German descent, Gustav and Otyllie Peplau.

She was the second daughter born of six children.

Gustav was an illiterate, hard-working father and Otyllie was an oppressive, perfectionist mother.

Though higher education was never discussed at home, Hilda was strong-willed, with motivation and vision to grow beyond women's traditionally constructed roles.

She wanted more out of life, and knew nursing was one of few career choices for women in her day.

As a child, she was watcher of people's behaviours.

She witnessed the devastating flu epidemic of 1918, a personal experience that greatly influenced her understanding of the impact of illness and death on families.

She witnessed people jumping from windows in delirium caused by the flu.

She was the valedictorian of her evening high school class, graduating in 1928.

Her choices, as she later described them, were "...marriage, teaching, or becoming a nun."

By contrast, the prospect of "free room and board" in a nursing program made nursing an attractive choice.

Peplau began her career in nursing in 1931 as a graduate of the Pottstown Hospital School of Nursing in Pottstown, Pennsylvania.

She then worked as a staff nurse in Pennsylvania and New York City.

A summer position as nurse for the New York University summer camp led to a recommendation for Peplau to become the school nurse at Bennington College in Vermont.

There she earned a bachelor's degree in interpersonal psychology in 1943.

At Bennington, and through field experiences at Chestnut Lodge, a private psychiatric facility, she studied psychological issues with Erich Fromm, Frieda Fromm-Reichmann, and Harry Stack Sullivan.

Peplau's lifelong work was largely focused on extending Sullivan's interpersonal theory for use in nursing practice.

From 1943 to 1945, she served as a first lieutenant in the U. S. Army Nurse Corps, and was assigned to the 312th Field Station Hospital in England, where the American School of Military Psychiatry was located.

Here she met and worked with leading figures in British and American psychiatry.

After the war, Peplau was at the table with many of these same men as they worked to reshape the mental health system in the United States through the passage of the National Mental Health Act of 1946.

Peplau held master's and doctoral degrees from Teachers College, Columbia University.

She was also certified in psychoanalysis by the William Alanson White Institute of New York City.

In the early 1950s, Peplau developed and taught the first classes for graduate psychiatric nursing students at Teachers College.

During the 1950s and 1960s, she conducted summer workshops for nurses throughout the United States, mostly in state psychiatric hospitals.

In these seminars, she taught interpersonal concepts and interviewing techniques, as well as individual, family, and group therapy.

Peplau was an advisor to the World Health Organization, and was a visiting professor at universities in Africa, Latin America, Belgium, and throughout the United States.

Dr. Peplau was a member of the faculty of the Rutgers College of Nursing now known as the Rutgers School of Nursing from 1954 to 1974.

At Rutgers, Peplau created the first graduate level program for the preparation of clinical specialists in psychiatric nursing.

She was a prolific writer, and was well known for her presentations, speeches, and clinical training workshops.

Peplau was a tireless advocate for advanced education for psychiatric nurses.

She thought that nurses should provide truly therapeutic care to patients, rather than the custodial care that was prevalent in the mental hospitals of that era.