No abstract

Narrating or storytelling is a fundamental practice for human survival and a means for finding meaning in experiences and for enhancing self-understanding. The use of story has been present in nursing since its origins. Biographical narrative has rarely been used as a research method in nursing, and there are no examples conceptualizing biographical narrative research methods within a unitary science perspective. The purpose of this paper is to describe one specific narrative methodological approach—the biographical narrative research method—and to link the method to the science of unitary human beings as a means of creating a unitary understanding of the storied nature of human-health experiences.

Objective: To create disciplinary knowledge derived from philosophical reflections focused on the practice of the Nurse who provides care to people with mental suffering, through the construction of a Nursing Situation Narrative. Method: A narrative writing was elaborated in the First Diploma of Philosophy in Nursing attended by professors of the School of Nursing of the Universidad del Valle, favoring the study of theoretical concepts associated with the professional practice of the assistants; from the construction of Nursing Situations. Result: A Nursing Situation was written using the narrative strategy derived from the professional experience of the teacher writer as Coordinator of a Home Care Program in a Level III Psychiatric Hospital in the city of Cali. The writing was analyzed according to the theory of Psychodynamic Nursing consonant with the Interactive Integrative vision of Nursing. Conclusion: The construction of disciplinary knowledge supported by narratives of Nursing Situations, facilitates the philosophical approaches of Nursing in a scientific and humanized way. For its part, care under the relational psychodynamic approach, vindicates human interaction based on communication, empathy, warmth and opportunity; generating that the Nurse -Care Subject relationship is itself therapeutic.