| Sumario: | Accessible summary This paper uses ethnographic research conducted in psychiatric in-patient settings to explore the phenomenon of observation., The discussion uses a post-structural frame to offer an alternative analysis and rethinking about what the performance of observing could and might mean in psychiatric nursing culture., The traditional aim of viewing observation as a task to keep clients safe is juxtaposed against the possibility that it is the psychiatric culture (which subjects both the carer and the cared for) that is actually doing the observing., The justification of observation beyond the analysis of keeping clients safe is negotiated by the way nurses observe one another and are themselves observed by psychiatric culture to ensure validated representation and performance., Abstract Those who are familiar with psychiatric inpatient settings will be aware of the expressions 'doing the obs', 'being on checks' and 'special observations'. That is because the task of observing patients is seen as being pivotal to the mental health nursing role. This paper describes an ethnographic research project that offers a rethinking of psychiatric observation. The author uses data from an ethnographic research project to provide an examination of the structure, process and outcome of this seemingly straightforward nursing task and explores how 'doing the obs' has additional symbolic and cultural meaning similar to what Barthes terms myth. The symbolic connotations are numerous and wide-ranging and expose a practice that could be said to punctuate daily activities and an ordering of relationships between nurses and services users. The classic sociological issues of status, power and containment are all relevant, yet rethought. The use of ethnographic research allowed the author to focus on the more symbolic cultural dynamics and develop five initial ethnographic themes concerning the constituting experience of watching and being watched.
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