idea that competency in knowing self as caring and as living caring grows throughout life. Being complete in the moment also signifies something more: there is no insufficiency, no brokenness, or absence of something. As a result, nursing activities are not directed toward healing in the sense of making whole; from our perspective, wholeness is present and unfolding. There is no lack, failure, or inadequacy which is to be corrected through nursing--persons are whole, complete, and caring. The theory of Nursing as Caring, then, is based on an understanding that the focus of nursing, both as a discipline and as a profession, involves the nurturing of persons living caring and growing in caring. In this statement of focus, we recognize the unique human need to which nursing is the response as a desire to be recognized as caring person and to be supported in caring. This focus also requires that the nurse know the person seeking nursing as caring person and that the nursing action be directed toward nurturing the nursed in their living caring and growing in caring. We will briefly discuss this theory in general terms here and more fully illuminate it in subsequent chapters on nursing practice (Chapter 4), education (Chapter 5), and scholarship (Chapter 6). We will address administration of nursing services and of nursing education programs in Chapters 4 and 5, respectively. Nurturing persons living caring and growing in caring at first glance appears broad and abstract. In some ways, the focus is broad in that it applies to nursing situations in a wide variety of practical settings. On the other hand, it takes on specific and practical meaning in the context of individual nursing situations as the nurse attempts to know the nursed as caring person and focuses on nurturing that person as he or she lives and grows in caring.