Publisher's Synopsis
This account of the caring relationship in nursing practice breaks new ground. It is a work of great significance and value to practitioners and researchers. Interviews with practicing nurses and hospitalized patients were structured and analyzed using a combination of personal construct theory, repertory grid technique and phenomenological psychology. The substantive findings show how experienced nurses construe the process of caring in a professional context in broad psychological terms. It emerges that the nurses have a very clear picture of the boundaries which limit their helping. The later interpretive work brings out with great sensitivity many of the detailed aspects of the nursesÆ and patientsÆ experiences of the caring relationship. Of particular interest is the different experiences which characterize the powerful position of the nurse compared with the vulnerable position of the patient in hospital.
