The central insight (intuition or idea) from which this exploration
grows is this: nursing itself is a form of human dialogue. I mean that
the phenomenon of nursing, that is, the nurturing, intersubjective
transaction, the event lived or experienced by the participants in the
everyday world, is a dialogue.
Much has been written about dialogue and, as the word is now in vogue,
it is being used in different ways. Here, the term "dialogue" is used to
denote a broader concept than the typical dictionary definition of
dialogue as "a conversation between two or more persons or between
characters in a drama or novel." It is used in the existential sense. It
implies an "ontological sphere," in Buber's terms, or the "realm of
being" to which Marcel refers. Here it refers to a _lived_ dialogue,
that is, to a particular form of intersubjective relating. This may be
understood in terms of seeing the other person as a distinct unique
individual and entering into relation with him. In other words, nursing
is a dialogical mode of being in an intersubjective situation.
As in common usage, here also, the term "dialogue" implies
communication, but in a much more general sense. It is not restricted to
the notion of sending and receiving messages verbally and nonverbally.
Rather, dialogue is viewed as communication in terms of call and
response. {24}
Nursing implies a special kind of meeting of human persons. It occurs in
response to a perceived need related to the health-illness quality of
the human condition. Within that domain, which is shared by other health
professions, nursing is directed toward the goal of nurturing well-being
and more-being (human potential). Nursing, therefore, does not involve a
merely fortuitous encounter but rather one in which there is purposeful
call and response. In this vein, humanistic nursing may be considered as
a special kind of lived dialogue.