In real life, nursing phenomena may be experienced from the reference points of nurturing, of being nurtured, or of the nurturing process in the "between." For instance, the nurse may describe comfort as an experience of comforting another person; the patient, as an experience of being comforted. However, while each has experienced something within himself, he also has experienced something of the "between," namely, the message or meaning of the "comforting-being comforted" process. This essential interhuman dimension of nursing is beyond and yet within the technical, procedural, or interactional elements of the event. It is a quality of being that is expressed in the doing. Being and Doing As an intersubjective, transactional experience, nursing necessarily involves both a mode of being and a doing of something. The being and doing are interrelated so inextricably that it is difficult, even distorting, to speak of one without the other. Descriptions of nursing, however, often focus primarily (sometimes exclusively) on the doing aspect of the process, on the nursing techniques or procedures. The observable acts are more easily discerned and discussed. They can be measured, counted, and charted. Yet, in the actual interhuman experience of nursing the weight of being is felt. Presence and the effect of one's presence can be known much more vividly than they can be described. Still, not to attempt to describe them is to present only a half, or perhaps less than half, of the nursing picture. When a nurse refers to a nurse-patient interaction during which a change in the patient's condition or behavior was noted, one hoping to get a description of nursing may ask, "What did you do?" Often the answer is a description of a {14} manual action or a verbal interchange. Sometimes the nurse responds, "Nothing, I was just there." Perhaps it is the question that is wrong. The respondent usually interprets "doing" in a limited sense. In reality, everything the nurse does is colored by the character of her being in the situation. The nursing act itself is a behavioral expression of the nurse's state of being, for example, concerned, fatigued, hurried, confident, hopeless. Furthermore, there is a kind of being, a "being with" or a "being there," that is really a kind of doing for it involves the nurse's active presence. To "be with" in this fuller sense requires turning one's attention toward the patient, being aware of and open to the here and now shared situation, and communicating one's availability. Whether the nursing act is verbal, or manual, or both, a silent glance, or physical presence, some degree of intersubjectivity is involved and warrants recognition. To become more aware of and explore more fully this essential constituent of nursing we need to focus on the participants' modes of being in the situation. Rather than ask the nurse, "What did you do in the nurse-patient situation?" we ought to ask, "What happened between you?"