Living a caring presence in nursing: a Heideggerian hermeneutical analysis

Abstract

While the claim has been made that caring is the most important, central focus of nursing, often the meaning of caring presence in nursing and human caring in general is so deeply embedded in our consciousness and our cultural practices that its presence is invisible or taken for granted. The purpose of this Heideggerian hermeneutical study was to illuminate nurses' shared practices and common meanings of living a caring presence in nursing. Five nurses wrote a story, one they would never forget, of living a caring presence. The stories were analysed and interpreted against a background of Heideggerian philosophy to reveal the constitutive pattern, "caring as the presencing of being'. Meaning and complexity of the pattern were revealed in themes that illuminate and articulate the essence of nursing and the phenomenon of caring. Themes were: the timelessness and spacelessness of caring, creating home, and the call to care as the call of conscience. The results can help to answer the Heideggerian question of what a marginalized cultural practice like the profession of nursing can teach a levelling technological society about the meaning of being.