RETRACTED ARTICLE: The encounter with the vulnerable body: applying the lens of caring practice

Abstract

Humans can never escape their existential vulnerability and it is shown even in the example from holistic care, where health care providers really try to understand the complexities of care and life itself. Applying a integrated and humanistic approach, this theoretical paper analyses the ways and mechanisms of power that appear in a nurse-patient relationship as both a challenge and an imperative of contemporary caring practice. This will be demonstrated by one example from caring practice that illustrates the strategies of power that emerge in a body care interaction. Findings indicate the existence of power exercised by the nurse over and with the patient and concurrently another power exercised upon the nurse, that leads the nurse to control his/her participation in care, as well as that of the patient-the power of organization the nurse feels as regulator of time and obligation to render care. The control of participation in care is a mode of exercising power that frames and disciplines real time as a function of dividing activities in organized time. It is the responsibility of the nurse to be aware of the power imbalance, to recognize the potential for patients to feel intimidated and to create a therapeutic alliance. The right use of power in the nurse-patient interaction guarantees the patient's needs are foremost and the patient's vulnerability is sheltered.