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CHAPTER 10 Kari Martinsen 155

MAJOR CONCEPTS & DEFINITIONS
Martinsen is reluctant to provide definitions of in concrete situations and must be accounted for. Our
terms, since definitions have a tendency to close off actions need to be accounted for; they are learned and
concepts. Rather, she maintains, the content of con- justified through the objectivity of empathy, which
cepts should be presented. It is important to circum- consists of empathy and reflection. This means in
scribe the meaningful content of a term, explain concrete terms to discover how the other will best be
what the term means, but avoid having terms locked helped, and the basic conditions are recognition and
up in definitions. empathy. Sincerity and judgment enter into moral
practice (Martinsen, 1990).
Care
Care “forms not only the value base of nursing, but is Person-Oriented Professionalism
a fundamental precondition for our lives. Care is the Person-oriented professionalism is “to demand pro-
positive development of the person through the fessional knowledge which affords the view of the
Good” (Martinsen, 1990, p. 60). Care is a trinity: patient as a suffering person, and which protects his
relational, practical, and moral simultaneously integrity. It challenges professional competence and
(Alvsvåg, 2003; Martinsen, 2003b, 2012b). Caring is humanity in a benevolent reciprocation, gathered in
directed outward toward the situation of the other. a communal basic experience of the protection and
In professional contexts, caring requires education care for life . . . It demands an engagement in what
and training. “Without professional knowledge, con- we do, so that one wants to invest something of one-
cern for the patient becomes mere sentimentality” self in encounters with the other, and so that one is
(Martinsen, 1990, p. 63). She is clear that guardianship obligated to do one’s best for the person one is to
negligence and sentimentality are not expressions care for, watch over or nurse. It is about having an
of care. understanding of one’s position within a life context
that demands something from us, and about placing
Professional Judgment and Discernment the other at the centre, about the caring encounter’s
These qualities are linked to the concrete. It is orientation toward the other” (Martinsen, 2000b,
through the exercise of professional judgment in pp. 12, 14).
practical, living contexts that we learn clinical
observation. It is “training not only to see, listen and Sovereign Life Utterances
touch clinically, but to see, listen and touch clinically Sovereign life utterances are phenomena that accom-
in a good way” (Martinsen, 1993b, p. 147). The pany the Creation itself. They exist as precultural
patient makes an impression on us, we are moved phenomena in all societies; they are present as poten-
bodily, and the impression is sensuous. “Because tials. They are beyond human control and influence,
perception has an analogue character, it evokes and are therefore sovereign. Sovereign life utterances
variation and context in the situation” (Martinsen, are openness, mercy, trust, hope, and love. These are
1993b, p. 146). One thing is reminiscent of another, phenomena that we are given in the same way that we
and this recollection creates a connection between are given time, space, air, water, and food (Alvsvåg,
the impressions in the situation, professional knowl- 2003). Unless we receive them, life disintegrates. Life
edge, and previous experience. Discretion expresses is self-preservation through reception (Martinsen,
professional knowledge through the natural senses 2000b; 2012b). Sovereign life utterances are precondi-
and everyday language (Martinsen, 2005, 2006). tions for care, simultaneously as caring actions are
necessary conditions for the realization of sovereign
Moral Practice Is Founded on Care life utterances in the concrete life. We can act in such
“Moral practice is when empathy and reflection work a way that openness, trust, hope, mercy, and love are
together in such a way that caring can be expressed in realized through our interactions, or we can shut
nursing” (Martinsen, 1990, p. 60). Morality is present them out. Without their presence in our actions,

Continued