Phenomenology directs us to the study of the "thing itself." The
existential literature, descriptions of what man has come to know and
understand in his experience, has evolved from the use of the
phenomenological approach. In the humanistic nursing practice theory the
"thing itself" is the existentially experienced nursing situation. Both
phenomenology and existentialism value experience, man's capacities for
surprise and knowing, and honor the evolving of the "new."
What Does Humanistic Nursing Practice Theory Ask the Nurse to Describe?
Nurses experience with other human beings peak life events: creation,
birth, winning, nothingness, losing, separation, death. Their "I-Thou"
empathetic {7} relations with persons during these actual lived
experiences and their own experiential-educational histories make "the
between" of the nursing situation unique. Through in-touchness with
self, authentic awareness and reflection on such experiences the human
nurse comes to know. Humanistic nursing practice theory asks that the
nurse describe what she comes to know: (1) the nurse's unique
perspective and responses, (2) the other's knowable responses, and (3)
the reciprocal call and response, the between, as they occur in the
nursing situation.
Why Does Humanistic Nursing Practice Theory Ask That Existential Nursing
Experience Be Described Phenomenologically?
There are many reasons. Philosophically and fundamentally the reason
relates to how humanistic nursing perceives the purpose and aim of
nursing. It views nursing as the ability to struggle with other man
through peak experiences related to health and suffering in which the
participants in the nursing situation are and become in accordance with
their human potential. So, like Elie Wiesel, the novelist, who states in
_One Generation After_ that he writes to attest to events of human
existence and to come to understand, humanistic nursing proposes that
human forms of existence in nursing situations need attestation and that
through describing, nurses will understand better and relate to man as
man is. Thus the profession of nursing's service contribution to the
community of man will ever become more.
The reasons for phenomenologically describing nursing are complex,
interinfluential, and their ramifications are far reaching.
Sequentially, the study and description of human phenomena presented in
nursing situations will affect (1) the quality of the nursing situation,
(2) man's general knowledge of the variation in human capacity for
beingness, and (3) the development and form of the evolvement of nursing
theory and science.
How Can Nurses Begin to Describe Humanistic Nursing Phenomenologically?
The process of how to describe nursing events entails deliberate
responsible, conscious, aware, nonjudgmental existence of the nurse in
the nursing situation followed by disciplined authentic reflection and
description.
There are obvious common lived human experiences which if considered and
wondered about, can advance a nurse's ability for phenomenological
description. These experiences are easily cited, yet not easily plumbed.
Often experiences such as anger, frustration, waiting, apathy,
confusion, perplexity, questioning, surprise, conflict, headache,
crying, laughing, joy are quickly theoretically and analytically
interpreted, labeled, and dismissed. Examining, reexamining, mulling
over, brooding on, and fussing with the situational context of these
experiences as nonlabeled, raw human lived data can yield {8}
knowledge. Knowledge of the nurse's and her other's unique human
existence in their on-going struggle becomes explicit. Superficial
treatment of such human clues results in nonfulfillment of the realistic
human possibilities of artful-scientific professional knowing and
nursing.
Words are the major tools of phenomenological description. They are
limited by our human ability to express, and yet they are the best tools
we have for expressing the human condition. The novelist James Agee, in
_Let Us Now Praise Famous Men_, says that though man or human
relatedness never could be described perfectly it would be the greater
crime not to try. This, too, is a basic premise of the humanistic
nursing practice theory.
The words we use to describe and discuss this theory are easy words,
everyday English words. We all know them. We, at times, narrow a word's
meaning or make it more specific. Some problem is presented by words we
are accustomed to using and hearing. Habit and our human fallibility can
promote only superficial comprehension. Thoughtful awareness of the
meaning of these same sequentially expressed words can convey the
complexity of the never completely fathomable "all-at-onceness" of lived
existence. This theory is expressed in terms like "existence
confirming," "striving," "becoming," "relation," and "reflection." We
intend such words to express the grasp with acceptance and recognition
of human limitations while awesomely pondering the open-ended scope of
each man's potential.
In time, with disciplined authentic reflective description, themes
common and significant to nursing situations become apparent. They are
then available for compilation, complementary synthesis, and on-going
refinement. A nursing resource bank accrues: Not a bank that offers a
map of how and what to do but rather one that further stimulates nurses'
exploration and understanding.