Page 168 - Nursing: The Philosophy and Science of Caring

Fr om carative Fa c t o r 8 t o C ar it as ProC e s s 8
(Levinas 1969). Intentional touch and energetic caring modalities are
examples of how one works within the unified field to repattern in
the direction of expanded consciousness. Quinn goes further by using
the metaphor of sound, suggesting that the pattern and vibration of
the nurse’s higher energetic field of (Caritas) consciousness become
a tuning fork, resonating at a healing (Love) vibratory frequency in
which the patient attunes to or resonates with that (higher) frequency.
In this expanded Caritas view, we acknowledge that what the nurse holds
in her or his heart matters (M. Smith personal communication, 2007).
The heart sends messages to the mind, radiating energetically into the
field and guiding actions, opening a new field of possibilities in the
moment.
This line of thinking is consistent with the human caring theo-
retical notion that caring consciousness transcends time, space, and
physicality and is dominant over the physical (Watson 1999). This
(Caritas) awareness alters the human-environmental field and helps the
patient access his or her inner healer (or helps the other to be in “right-
relation”); thus, such an environmental presence can at least potenti-
ate an inner healing processes.
In other words, holding authentic, heartfelt, positive thoughts
such as loving-kindness, caring, healing, forgiveness, and so forth,
vibrates at a higher level than having lower thoughts, such as com-
petition, fear, greed, anxiety, hostility, and similar thoughts (Watson
1999). If one holds higher-thought consciousness, the entire field can
be, and is being, repatterned by the nurse’s consciousness. The nurse-
self, the Caritas Nurse, then indeed Becomes the environment, affect-
ing the entire field. A caring moment is more likely to manifest in the
“now,” informed by the higher consciousness being communicated by
the nurse’s (Caritas) consciousness.

Caritas environmental fielD moDel
In this expanded consciousness view of environment, we evolve in
our theories and in our science; we are called to look again at how
we knowingly participate/co-participate in our unitary field. In the
Caritas environmental model, we can no longer view the environment
or the practitioner as “out there,” separate and distinct from us as a

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