We have said in Chapter 1 that the domain of a discipline is that which its members assert. The statement of focus that directs the study of nursing from this theoretical perspective is that of nurturing persons as they live caring and grow in caring. The study of nursing is approached through the use of nursing situations. The knowledge of nursing resides in the nursing situation and is brought to life through study. The nursing situation is a shared lived experience in which the caring between the nurse and the one nursed enhances personhood or the process of living grounded in caring. These situations, like the many cited in earlier chapters, become available for study through the use of story (recounting the situation in ways that convey the essence of the lived experience). These stories create anew the lived experience of caring between the nurse and the nursed, and bring to life the basic values described in Chapter 1. Story then becomes the method for studying and knowing nursing. Carper's (1978) four patterns of knowing serve as an organizing framework for asking epistemological questions of caring in nursing. Those patterns include personal, ethical, empirical, and aesthetic knowing. Each of these patterns comes into play as one strives to understand the whole of the situation. Personal knowing centers on knowing and encountering self and other, empirical knowing addresses the science of caring in nursing, ethical knowing focuses on what "ought to be" in nursing situations, and aesthetic knowing is the integration and synthesis of all knowing as lived in a particular situation. The poem, "Intensive Care," a representation of a nursing situation, is given here to illustrate the organization of sample content. INTENSIVE CARE (centered)