What meaning does this conception of man have for humanistic nursing
practice theory? This theory necessitates a nurse who accepts and
believes in the chaos of existence as lived and experienced by each man
despite the shadows he casts interpreted as poise, control, order, and
joy.
Labeled mental patients in therapeutic situation, in the sun beyond the
shadows, express how they set themselves apart from the rest of the
community {56} of man. They express how they experience themselves.
They view themselves as the worst, the noblest, the unhappiest, the most
maligned, and the most afraid. It comes out as if these superlative
distinctions are their only claims to fame. In my humanness I appreciate
the awesome dreads they live. They need to know that they exist in their
unique distinctness. And yet, the separation and loneliness with which
they adorn themselves and which professionally we have fostered with
fear engendering diagnostic labels seem a heavier than necessary burden.
In the light of existential loneliness, a part of each human existence,
often I invite them to see themselves as not so unlike other men and as
suffering the turmoil of existence as part of the human community, such
as it is. One usually can note their surprise and disbelief of my view.
Then, momentarily at least, tension seems to visibly fall from their
faces and forms. When this idea of them is heard by them, its effect
corresponds to how I experienced the technique in sensitivity group of
literally being allowed to dance into what felt like the circle of man,
our group.
To hear opportunities for humanistic nursing acceptance and support
nurses, too, need to question their self-nurse-image within the nursing
and health community. Do they know that they make and have real
potential for making a difference, an important difference? Do they
accept themselves as nurse? To me, a nurse is a being, becoming through
intersubjectively calling and responding in her suffering, joyous,
struggling, chaotic humanness, always trying beyond the possible while
never completely free from ignoble personal human wants. And, through
her presence it is possible for other persons to be all they can be in
crisis situations of their worlds. For the nurse to be humanistic it is
necessary for her to live her human condition-in-her-nursing-world
proudly with all its vulnerability and all its wonders. As man, the
nurse can recall and reflect on her "I," on her past "I-Other"
experiences, and she can come to know and accept more and more of
herself, as she becomes more. In humanistically recalling and reflecting
a nurse will understand and respond empathetically and sympathetically
to both her own humanness and the other's. She will recognize both self
and other as "poor devil" and "poor saint," all-at-once.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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