MUTUAL CONNECTEDNESS: HOLISTIC NURSING PRACTICE UNDER VARYING CONDITIONS OF INTIMACY (NURSING).
Contributors: University of California, San Francisco.
Published: 1989
Number of pages: 233
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.
Description: The purpose of this study was to: (a) define and describe holistic nursing practice in private settings, and (b) to generate theory of client-nurse interaction in holistic nursing practice.

Nurses in private holistic practice (N = 12) and their clients (N = 18) participated in the study. Data were obtained through one face-to-face, taped, nurse interview and three client interviews with each subject over a three month period. Information was elicited from the nurses: (a) to determine if they met the predetermined criteria for holistic nursing practice, i.e., integrated counseling, teaching and energy releasing touch therapies in an environment structured for safety, respect, nurturance, and beauty; and (b) to obtain data about their beliefs, practices, and experiences. Clients provided data about their decisions to obtain holistic nurse services, their thoughts and feelings about their relationship with the nurse, and perceived changes in health status. Grounded theory strategies were employed.

Findings revealed a profile of holistic practice--the nurses, their practices and clients. Analysis of the client-nurse interaction from the interactional stance of the nurse and the experiential perspective of the client provided the Theory of Mutual Connectedness. The major categories were intimacy, mutual connectedness, nursing therapy and healing. Mutual connectedness served as context for nursing therapy, and occurred under conditions of intimacy. Nursing therapies served as strategies for facilitation of healing processes. The theory provides explanation of interactional processes that facilitate and deter healing in that setting.

Large scale societal support for holistic nursing practice is lacking because the use of energy releasing touch therapies can not be explained by traditional Western scientific theory. Holistic nurses depend on the emerging science of holism for foundational support and explanation.

Holistic nursing in private settings provided opportunity to study caring in the client-nurse relationship. This study, descriptive and explorative in nature, is confirmable only as clients and nurses read it and recognize the experience as their own. It is not generalizable to other populations.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 50-11, Section: B, page: 4987.

Thesis (D.N.S.)--UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO, 1989.

School code: 0034.