Negative Capability and Organisational Support in Long‐Term Psychiatric Nursing

We read with great interest the article by Odachi et al. (2025) ‘Skills and Resources of Psychiatric Mental Health Nurses to Support a Long and Uncertain Recovery Journey: A Grounded Theory Approach’, published in the Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing. Their grounded theory of ‘redefinition of care’ and their application of the concept of negative capability make a significant contribution to understanding how nurses sustain recovery-oriented practice in long-term contexts characterised by uncertainty. From a clinical perspective, we greatly appreciate the shift away from an exclusive emphasis on technical skills toward greater attention to emotional resilience, interpretive openness, and relational flexibility. The categories of burden management, exploring new contexts, and openness to uncertainty are highly consistent with the everyday reality of psychiatric mental health nurses, who must continue to provide care when goals remain unclear and change occurs very slowly. However, we offer three brief reflections that may enrich the discussion initiated by Odachi et al. First, there is a risk that negative capability may be interpreted primarily as an individual psychological capacity that nurses are expected to cultivate independently. However, the authors' own findings indicate that burden management involves collective processes such as pausing, sharing emotional experiences, and reconstructing the care community. These processes point clearly to an organisational dimension. Future research could more explicitly examine how institutional factors, including staffing levels, leadership practices, and supervision structures, either support or constrain nurses' ability to tolerate uncertainty and ‘wait with purpose’ rather than defaulting to routinised care practices (Corbett et al. 2025). Second, this study focuses on nurses' retrospective narratives about cases they consider successful. This is a reasonable and productive starting point. Still, it may fail to fully capture moral distress, emotional exhaustion, and situations in which ‘openness to uncertainty’ becomes unsafe, for instance, under intense risk-management pressures. Mixed-methods studies that also include cases that remain ‘stuck’, as well as service users' perspectives on how ‘redefinition of care’ appears from their side of the relationship, could deepen our understanding of when negative capability is helpful and when it may instead conceal structural problems. Third, the educational implications of the study are particularly promising. Odachi et al. propose participatory workshops aimed at fostering pluralistic thinking, dialogue, and comfort with ambiguity. These ideas could be further operationalised within both pre-registration education and continuing professional development by incorporating structured reflective spaces, interdisciplinary case discussions, and immersive simulations of ethically complex scenarios. Educational strategies of this kind have been shown to support practitioners in navigating uncertainty while maintaining professional boundaries, patient safety, and self-care (Brentnall et al. 2024). In conclusion, Odachi et al. illuminate an often-invisible dimension of psychiatric mental health nursing: the disciplined practice of remaining present and engaged in the absence of clear answers. By extending their analysis to organisational policy, workforce support, and educational structures, the profession may be better equipped to sustain this fragile yet essential capacity over time. The authors have nothing to report. The authors declare no conflicts of interest. The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available due to privacy or ethical restrictions.