Caring, curing, and brief therapy: a model for nurse-psychotherapy.

Traditional models of psychotherapy have failed to meet the demands for accessible, cost-effective, and accountable mental health services. This traditional approach to mental health based on the received view of science is deconstructed in terms of its cure-orientation and contrasted with the care-orientation of nursing that is more consistent with postmodern ideas of science. Methods of brief, intermittent or possibility-oriented therapy are suggested as ways to actualize a care-orientation to mental health nursing that is more consistent with nursing's values and is more accessible to the needs of the consumer.