Nurse of the Century, Hildegard E. Peplau
By Doug Simon
Hildegard E. Peplau was one of the world’s leading nurses and theorists of the 20th century. It has been argued that Dr. Peplau’s life and work produced the greatest changes in nursing practice since Florence Nightingale. Indeed, she is credited with developing a breakthrough theory that provides the foundation of modern nursing practices. Her stunning career earned her the titles “Nurse of the Century” and “Mother of Psychiatric Nursing.” She was also a resident of Madison, New Jersey for 30 years.
Hilda was born in Reading, Pennsylvania to immigrant parents of German descent. She began her career in 1931 as a graduate of the Pottstown Hospital School of Nursing in Pottstown, PA. She then went on to work as a staff nurse in Pennsylvania and New York City and later Bennington College in Vermont. While at Bennington she earned a Bachelor’s degree in interpersonal psychology. From 1943 to 1945 she served in England with the Army Nurse Corps where the American School of Military Psychiatry was located. After the war, many of the men she had worked with went on to reshape the mental health system in the United States.
Peplau earned her master’s and doctoral degrees from Teachers College, Columbia University and was certified in psychoanalysis by the William Alanson White Institute of New York City. She was a member of the faculty of the College of Nursing at Rutgers from 1954-1974 and while there created the first graduate level program for the preparation of clinical specialists in psychiatric nursing. During her career she 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. She also served as a consultant to the U.S. Surgeon General, the U.S. Air Force, and the National Institute of Mental Health. In 1975 and 1979 she served as a visiting professor at the University Leuven in Belgium and was awarded honorary doctoral degrees from several universities including Alfred, Duke, Indiana, Ohio State, Rutgers and the University of Ulster in Ireland. In 1997 she received the world of nursing’s highest honor, the Christiane Reimann Prize, an award only given out every four years. In 1996 the American Academy of Nursing honored her as a “Living Legend,” and in 1998 the American Nurses Association inducted her into the ANA Hall of Fame.
Hilda was a prolific writer. Her signature work appeared in 1952 in her highly regarded book titled Interpersonal Relations in Nursing. Inspired and heavily influenced by the scholarship of Harry Stack Sullivan, her interpersonal relations theory describes six nursing roles that lead into the different phases of the nurse-client relationship: Stranger Role, Resource Role, Teaching Role, Counseling Role, Surrogate Role and Leadership Role. The book has been translated into nine languages and has stood the test of time having been reissued numerous times. The archives of Peplau’s work are housed at the Schlesinger Library at Harvard University.
Tired of urban life in New York city, in June of 1955 Peplau bought a house at 118 Shunpike Rd. and lived there for the next 30 years. She then moved to the west coast and in 1999 at the age of 90 she passed away at her residence in Sherman Oaks, California.
