As a theory of practice, humanistic nursing is derived from individual
nurses' actual experiences in their uniquely perceived but commonly
shared nursing world. Its development, therefore, depends on the
articulation of their angular views and also on the truly collaborative
effort of a genuine community of nurses struggling together to describe
humanistic nursing practice.
Since the description of nursing phenomena is recognized as a basic and
essential step in theory development, this chapter presented an approach
and detailed some techniques used by nurses to describe phenomena. It is
hoped that these would be viewed critically and creatively; that they
would be used, varied, combined adapted, and lead to new methods suited
to the description of nursing phenomena. And if they are developed, it
is hoped that they will be shared for the growth of humanistic nursing
depends not only on using and sharing what we learn but also on
describing how we come to know. Then humanistic nursing theory will grow
in dialogue.