Page 111 - Nursing: The Philosophy and Science of Caring

t heoret ica l Fra m ew or k F or C ar it as/car i ng rel at i on s h i p
• Transpersonal Caritas Nursing becomes transformative, liberat-
ing us to live and practice love and caring in our ordinary lives in
non-ordinary ways.

Perennial Guidelines for Sustaining a Caritas Relationship
• Suspending role and status: honoring each person and her or his
talents, gifts, and contributions as essential to the whole
• Speaking and listening without judgment, working from one’s
heart-centered space, working toward shared meaning and com-
mon values
• Listening with compassion and an open heart, without inter-
rupting; listening to another’s story as a healing gift of self
• Learning to be still, to center self, while welcoming and dwelling
in silence for reflection, contemplation, and clarity
• Recognizing that transpersonal Caritas presence and practice
transcend ego-self and connect us human-to-human, spirit-to-
spirit to where our life and work are divided no more
• Honoring the reality that we are part of each other’s journey; we
are all on our own journey toward healing as part of the infinity
of the human condition. When we work to heal ourselves, we
contribute to healing the whole.

RELATIONSHIP-CENTEREd CARING mOdEL
An educational template for Teaching Relationship-Centered Caring
to all health professions was developed by the Pew Fetzer Task Group
on Relationship-Centered Caring (1994). The Pew Fetzer Report (PFR)
on Relationship-Centered Care (1994), a national project in which I
participated, identified a set of knowledge, skills, and values associated
with the health practitioner–caring relationship at several levels:

• Practitioner’s relationship with self
• Practitioner-to-patient relationship
• Practitioner-to-community relationship
• Practitioner-to-practitioner relationship.

This information can be incorporated into educational curricula and
clinical learning experiences for all health care practitioners.

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