HUMANISTIC NURSING
Josephine G. Paterson, DNSc, RN Loretta T. Zderad, PhD, RN
PREFACE
Somewhere there's a child a crying
Somewhere there's a child a crying
Somewhere there's a child a crying
Crying for freedom in South Africa.[1]
But until someone hears the cry and responds, the child will continue to suffer the oppression of the current South African regime; and the world will continue to be less than it could be. To cry aloud when there seems no chance of being heard, belies a hope—perhaps an inherently human trait—that someone, somewhere, somehow will hear that cry and respond to it.
This same hope, that someone would hear and respond, allowed existential psychologist Viktor Frankl to survive the systematic torture and degradation in Nazi death camps. As Frankl and others sought their way, they found meaning and salvation "through love and in love;" and by choosing to believe that "life still waited for him, that a human being waited for his return."[2]
There is power in the call of one person and the potential response of another; and incredible power when the potential response becomes real. There is the power for each person to change as she becomes more than she was before the dialogue. There is the power to transcend the situation as two people engage the events that are whirling around them and together try to make sense of their worlds and find a meaning to their existence. When the call and response between two people is as honest as it can be, there is the revolutionary power which the poet Muriel Rukeyser speaks of:
What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life?
The world would split open.[3]
{iv}
The call and response of an authentic dialogue between a nurse and patient has great power—the power to change the lived experiences of both patient and nurse, to change the situation, to change the world. It is the same authenticity we search for in relationships with our friends and lovers. The person who really listens to what we are saying, who really tries to understand our lived experiences of the world and who asks the same from us. When found, it brings the same exhilarating feeling of self-affirmation and the comforting feeling of well-being.