Development of the Emerging Theory of Encountering Nursing in a Nurse-Nursed Dyadic Relationship (ThENNDyR)

Abstract

Encounters are celebrated experiences between persons with connectedness in human situations as expectation. While being in a human dynamic and rhythmic interaction, nursing encounters are dyadic relationships illuminated as patterns of an interconnected relationship moving between the nurse and the nursed, and reflecting person-and-otherness events. The purpose of this paper is to describe the theory of Encountering Nursing in a Nurse-Nursed Dyadic Relationship (ThENNDyR) and to illuminate the four nursing practice processes on which the theory is founded: Knowing as appreciating relational moments; Reflecting as engaging moments; Realizing as patterns of living moments; and Transcending as celebrating moments. Nursing practice occurs in moments in which dyadic relationships transpire as nursing encounters. As fleeting as moments are, the four processes of nursing simultaneously take place as understanding conditions that the who and what of the person warrants persons. “Encountering nursing” is a momentary co-existence of persons in a person-and-otherness situation communicating connectedness-interconnectedness in distinct patterning. Interactions in nursing exist as persons remain wholes and complete in the moment.