The relatedness of nursing and art, viewed existentially, is more basic,
more fundamental than mere similarity of qualities and characteristics
as discussed above. Both art and nursing are kinds of lived dialogue. In
both, man responds to his world of men and things through distance and
relation. They affect him and he affects them with the creative force of
his relation.
In fact, one may say further that humanistic nursing is _itself_ an
art--a clinical art--creative and existential. This is evident when one
returns again to the thing itself, to the nursing dialogue as it is
lived in the everyday world.
In genuine meeting the nurse recognizes the patient as distinct from
herself and turns to him as a presence. She is fully present to him,
authentically with her whole being and is open to him, not as an object,
but as a presence, a human being with potentials. In such a genuine
lived dialogue, the nurse sees within the patient a form (that is, a
possibility) of well-being or more-being (or comfort or health or
growth, and so forth). Like a beautiful landscape inspiring a painter or
poet, the form in the patient addresses itself to the nurse, a call for
help demanding recognition and response. The form is clearer than
experienced objects; it is not an image of her fancy; it exists in the
present although it is not "objective." The relation in which the nurse
(artist) stands to the form is real for it affects her and she affects
it. If she enters into genuine relation with the patient (I-Thou) her
effective power (caring, nursing skills, hope) brings forth the form
(well-being, more-being, comfort, growth), just as the painter's or
poet's power and skill create a painting or a poem.
Of course, there is this difference. The art of nursing, being
goal-directed and intersubjective, is more complex than the arts of
painting and poetry, for example. As a clinical art, it involves _being
with_ and _doing with_. For the patient must participate as an active
subject to actualize the possibility (form) within himself. Perhaps the
art of nursing could be described as transactional. Not only does the
nurse see the possibilities in the patient but the patient also sees a
form in the nurse (for example, possibility of help, of comfort, of
support), and he responds in relation to bring it forth. {93}
Then the question logically may be raised: Is the patient's responses in
relation (I-Thou) a necessary condition for the art of nursing? Or to
state it differently: can there be any art of nursing the infant, the
unresponsive, the comatose, the dying? I would answer that the art of
nursing can exist even if the relation is not mutual. For as Buber
writes,
"Even if the man to whom I say _Thou_ is not aware of it in the
midst of his experience, yet relation may exist. For _Thou_ is
more than _It_ realises. No deception penetrates here; here is
the cradle of Real Life."[14]