In a nursing situation the quality of being authentic with the self is to be striven for. It is a taking advantage of and appreciating of our human ability and spirit. It fosters our pursuit of inquiry, improves our caring for others, the contributing of our unique knowing, and it allows us to shape ever further a scientific-artistic profession of nursing. Authenticity With the Self: Potentiated in Lived Experience This example is offered to support the claims for authenticity with the self made in the last paragraph of the prior section. {59} As clinical supervisor and thesis advisor to a young graduate nursing student in her twenties the benefits of authenticity with the self were again brought home to me. She was taping her therapy sessions with two patients. These taped materials were to become her thesis data. One of her patients was not much younger than herself. The other was a divorced woman in her forties, around my age. This young graduate nursing student was receiving clinical nursing supervision as a necessity in her particular situation not by personal choice or awareness of need. >From the onset of her clinical supervision with me I was aware that it aroused her feelings about dependence. At her age this had meaning since she was still struggling for independence and interdependence. This is a difficult time. Her response to me was "respectful," sweetly and unawarely hostile, and she made it apparent that I was another nurse authority to be appeased, manipulated, and outsmarted. This behavior had been successful for her with past authorities. She was bright and had been able to complete intellectual requests and assignments at the last minute with little effort. During the initial phase of our relationship awareness of her struggle, her difficulties and her assets, allowed me to maintain a supportive kind of being with her. In listening to her therapy tapes I realized that another clinical supervisory approach was called for. She was defending against relating to her older patient by behaving toward her as she probably felt toward her own mother, and often toward me. Also, she was defeating her therapeutic purpose with her younger patient by viewing her as if the patient were herself. The older suicidal, depressed patient was begging her for an understanding therapeutic relationship. She needed terribly to share her suffering. This woman did not need a "rejecting daughter" working hard to outwit her. The younger patient needed to share her angry feelings and sense of worthlessness.