Relationships: the heart of the matter in Family Nursing.

摘要

Thanks to advances in the science of intimate relationships (Bell, 2011; Gottman, 2001; Gottman, Gottman, & DeClaire, 2007; Parker-Pope, 2010) as well as a plethora of self-help books and TV shows on the topic, we are now swimming in a sea of knowledge about relationships. A great deal of our interest in family nursing has been focused on examining the impact of illness on families and wondering how we can best translate this knowledge into better nursing practice with families. What would happen if family nurses would continue to focus on families but with a keener interest and heightened sensitivity to relationships-not only relationships between family members and relationships between the family and the larger systems within which they are embedded but also relationships between ourselves as health care professionals and the families with whom we are privileged to work? If health and illness and family nursing were conceptualized as relationship issues, how might our family nursing practice, education, and research be transformed?