Community psychiatric nurses' (CPNs') accounts of interactions with clients often reflect benefits of using humour appropriately. This is despite the use of humour as a specific therapeutic form of communication generally being ignored during CPNs' professional development. With the growth in community care, mental health nurses are required to function more autonomously within the client's home environment, thus the contextual nature of the nurse's use of humour may have to be adjusted accordingly. How nurses makes this adjustment of their use of humour appears to be left to their own experiences. Yet inappropriate use of humour may be costly to the nurse-client relationship. The research described in this paper used a descriptive qualitative methodology to explore the perceptions of seven CPNs working in Scotland in relation to their use of humour during client interactions. As this study did not specifically access clients, ethical permission was not required from the local research and ethics committee. This did not excuse the author from recognizing ethical considerations of the subjects in relation to sharing information about being volunteers, their rights of withdrawal and the risks and benefits of the study. Confidentiality and anonymity were also maintained by the use of pseudonyms. Data collected through critical incident analysis and interviews were subjected to content analysis. Findings confirm the paradoxical nature of humour. Humour, when used appropriately, assisted the development of trust and changing the client's restrictive perceptions. Damaging effects were reported, however, if the humour was misinterpreted or perceived by the client as demeaning their experience. Although the CPNs had not received any formal education about the use of humour, recommendations centred on raising student nurses' and CPNs' awareness about their own use of humour.

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This movement it was seen on one occasion to repeat three times. The movement was described as resembling the leap of a salmon, but slower. The intervals between the blowings were generally about two minutes, never more than five minutes. A stream like a spray fountain went up for, it seemed, 15 to 20 feet, at first straight up and then broke. The blow-hole part was not visible above water. When it rose ordinarily the back was seen first, then the dorsal fin ; in disappearing, the dorsal fin was the last seen; neither the tail nor the paddles were shown. When at last successfully harpooned it showed great strength and endurance for twenty-one hours, when the line parted, but it had been mortally wounded.^This was on New Year's morning, 1884. A week afterwards the carcase was observed by fishermen off Bervie, on the coast of Kincardineshire, floating so high as to be visible 6 miles off. It was towed into Stonehaven harbour on January 8, and beached there. My first observations and measurements were made as it lay on its back at Stonehaven, and photographs were taken, from one of which fig. 1 is taken. On the day after it was beached, the carcase, the property of the fishermen who found it, was exposed by public sale and purchased for a large price by Mr John Woods, oil merchant, Dundee, with a view to exhibition. * Some particulars of tlie endurance may be interesting. After the iirst harpoon, which was thrown and went in at the shoulder, it swam quietly, rising at intervals of two minutes to blow, but the vapour was reddish. After a second harpoon, which was hred, took effect, it made vigorous efforts, threw the tail in the air, lashed the water furiously and darted about in different directions. Volumes of blood were now thrown up, colouring the surrounding water. It had at first to drag two six-oared rowing boats and a steam launch, and, four or five hours afterwards, a steam tug was added. With this heavy drag it swam wildly about, on one occasion rising under one of the boats and lifting one end of it out of the water. Hand-lances were driven 3 feet deep into it, and blood spouted from the wounds. Two of the harpoon lines parted, but the steam tug and the two rowing boats were dragged out to sea by the remaining line, north to near Montrose, south to near the mouth of the Firth of Forth, then north again. At daylight a 4-feet-long iron was fired into it, also a couple of marling-spikes, and a number of iron bolts and nuts. About twenty-one hours after being harpooned it showed signs of exhaustion, turning from side to side and lying level on the water, but shortly revived and again held on; in half an hour the line parted, some way south of the Bell Rock, and the whale was free. The cruelty, which one cannot but recognise, of this long chase was largely owing to deficiency in modern appliances of attack. ANATOMY OF xMEGAPTERA LONGIMANA. S The carcase was removed the same night to Dundee, tugged by a rope attached to the tail.2. Dissection of the Caecase.-After it had lain a fortnight for exhibition, I was al...

Nurse teachers can often find themselves in various situations where they resort to using humour. An exploration of the role of humour within the educational relationship between nurse teachers and nursing students is the focus of this paper. Consideration is given to the nurse teachers' requirement to develop self-awareness in their own understanding of humour in order to facilitate and recognize the reasons for the nursing students' use of humour. The development of the appropriate use of humour by nursing students may lead to enhanced nursing practice, thereby reinforcing the need for inclusion of the theory of humour in both teacher training and the nursing curriculum.

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