2em">Uniqueness—Otherness

Existential experience infers human awareness of the self and of otherness. It calls for a recognition of each man as existing singularly in-his-situation and struggling and striving with his fellows for survival and becoming, for confirmation of his existence and understanding of its meaning.

Martin Buber, philosophical anthropologist and rabbi, expressed artfully this uniqueness, struggle, and potential of each man. He said:

"Sent forth from the natural domain of species into the hazard of the solitary category, [man] surrounded by the air of a chaos which came into being with him, secretly and bashfully he watches for a Yes which allows him to be and which can come to him only from one human person to another."[1]

With such uniqueness of each human being as a given, an assumed fact, only each person can describe or choose the evolvement of the project which is himself-in-his situation. This awesome and lonely human capacity for choice and novel evolvement presents both hope and fear as regards the unfolding of human "moreness." Uniqueness is a universal capacity of the human species. So, "all-at-once," while each man is unique; paradoxically, he is also like his fellows. His very uniqueness is a characteristic of his commonality with all other men.

Authenticity—Experiencing

In humanistic nursing existential awareness calls for an authenticity with one's self. As a visionary aim, such authenticity, self-in-touchness, is more than what usually is termed intellectual awareness. Auditory, olfactory, oral, visual, tactile, kinesthetic, and visceral responses are involved and each can convey unique meaning to man's consciousness. In-touchness with these sensations and our responses informs us about our quality of being, our thereness, our degree of presence with others. The kind of "between" we live with others depends on both our degree of awareness and the meaning we attribute to this awareness. This awareness, reflected on, sometimes shared with a responsible other for reality testing, offers us opportunity for broadening our meaning base, for becoming more—more in accord with our potential for humanness.

Perhaps a statement made by Dr. Gene Phillips, professor of education at Boston University, will clarify the importance I attach to each nurse becoming as much as she can be. He said, "The more mature we are the less it is necessary for us to exclude." Presently I would paraphrase this statement {5} and say, the more of ourselves we do not have to exclude, the more of the other we can be open to. Our self-awareness, in-touchness, self-acceptance, actualization of our potential allows us to share with others so they can become in relationship with us.

In this kind of existential relating, presence with another, a nurse is confronted with man as singular in his own peculiar angular, biased, or shaded reality. It becomes apparent that each has his very own lived world. So one might describe human existence as man-world as some refer to man as mind-body, using a hyphen rather than "and." Man's universal species commonality and peculiar perplexing noncommonality, has this manness, affect and constantly interplay with one another. This arena of interplay is complicated further by man's capacity for nondeterminedness, his ability for envisioning and considering a variety of alternatives and choosing selectively. Often these alternatives are experienced as contradictory and inconsistent. Humanistic nursing calls forth in the nurse the struggle of recognizing the complexity of men's relating in the nursing world as "just how man is" and his nature, his human condition, as searching, experiencing, and an unfolding becoming.

Moreness—Choice

How can a nurse let herself know her human responses and the breadth and depth of the possibilities called forth by the other? How can she be, search, experience, become in an accord with the calls and responses of her lived nursing world? It is a chosen, deliberate life-long process. The process itself is generative. One experience opens the door for the next. In humanistic nursing practice theory we call this kind of experiencing authentic, genuine, or "letting be what is." It is man conscious of himself, not necessarily acting out, but aware of his human responses to his world and their meanings to him. This quality of personal authenticity allows one's responsible chosen actions to be based in human knowledge rather than human defensiveness. Man is a knowing place. From education and living experience one assumes an initial innate force in human beingness that moves man to come to know his own and others' angular views of the world. Humanistic nursing is concerned with these angular views, these differences being viewed by nurses responsibly and as realities that are beyond the negative-positive, good-evil standard of judgement. Or, for example, nursing is concerned with how this particular man, with his particular history, experiences being labeled with this general diagnosis and being admitted, discharged, and living out his life with his condition as he views it in-his-world.

Man has the inherent capacity to respond to other man as other man. Only each unique nurse faced with the chaos of her alternatives in a situation can then choose either to relate or not to relate and how to relate in-her-nursing-world to others. Choosing to and how to relate or respond cannot be superimposed on man from the outside by another. A person, to a degree, can be coerced to behave outwardly in a certain way. For example, physically, in a spatial {6} sense, a nurse can be ordered into parallel existence with another. Being existentially and genuinely present with another is different. This human mode of being is chosen and controlled by the self. It takes responsible self-ordering that can arise only in the spirit of one's own disciplined being.

Value—Nonvalue

To offer genuine presence to others, a belief must exist within a person that such presence is of value and makes a difference in a situation. If it is a value for a nurse, it will be offered in her nursing situation. Libraries, concrete buildings bursting with words of great thinkers, support the value of genuine presence and authentic dialogue between persons. Consider the literary works that have conveyed or reflected this message throughout the existence of intellectual man. Plato, Rousseau, Goethe, Proust, Nietzsche, Whitehead, Jung, May, Frankl, Hesse, de Chardin, Bergson, Marcel and Buber effortlessly come to mind.

Many nurses are genuine presences in the nursing situation. Some have tried to share their experiences; some have not. And, there are those who are not genuine presences in the nursing situation. One wonders if this has influenced the distinctions nurses have made over the years with certainty when considering their nurse contemporaries. Often one hears, "she is a good nurse, a natural." These positive critics are often up against it when asked, "why, how, what?" Descriptive literary conceptualizations of nursing that reflect this quality of nurse-being (presence, intersubjectiveness) call for nurses willing to search out and bring to awareness, the mysteries of their commonplace, their familiar, and to appreciate the unique ideas, values, and meanings fundamental to their practice. Conceptualization of these qualities by practicing nurses is basic and necessary to the development of a science and an actualized profession of nursing.

PHENOMENOLOGICAL DESCRIPTION

Phenomenology directs us to the study of the "thing itself." The existential literature, descriptions of what man has come to know and understand in his