[From the ritualized distance between nursing practice and nursing theory to eye-level contact].
Although the "social relationship" between care givers and care recipients should be one of the distinguishing features of care giving--in contradiction to medicine--there is in fact a clear need in practice and on a theoretical level for the professional to distance him-/herself from a physically or psychologically "other" person. In order to avoid this destructive situation whereby people are divided into categories such as healthy and ill, helping and in need of help, powerful and weak, knowledgeable and ignorant, a self-reflective process on the part of the caring profession needs to be set in motion. This would inevitably lead care givers to question their roles and behaviour as professionals which is a necessary step towards establishing a "social relationship" between care givers and care recipients. Only then can the experience of the care recipients and the professional knowledge of the care givers be regarded as of equal importance. No longer would care recipients be perceived as somehow different and needed to be kept at a distance by numerous rituals.
Wolber
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Freie Mitarbeiterin der Dietrich-Bonhoeffer-Schule des Berufsförderungswerkes Heidelberg.
D002562:Ceremonial Behavior; D004645:Empathy; D006801:Humans; D019359:Knowledge; D020380:Needs Assessment; D009723:Nurse-Patient Relations; D009742:Nursing Theory; D012929:Psychological Distance