Keywords

caring, dialectics, health, hermeneutics, Newman's theory, nursing discipline, nursing practice, paradigm, praxis research, reflective practice

 

Authors

  1. Litchfield, Merian RN, PhD

Abstract

A participatory process approach in research and scholarship is proposed in the context of the postmodern movement and a disciplinary emphasis on practice. Two sequential studies are presented to illustrate praxis in nursing in which health is expanding consciousness. A framework of personal practice was developed from the first study and reconceptualized in the second as a process of modeling practice involving partnership, dialogue, pattern recognition, and health as dialectic. This praxis illustrates the merging of theory, practice and research as practice wisdom. Health and caring can be seen as the same process.