title: Being authentic and being a chameleon: nurse-patient interaction revisited.
abstract: This paper explores contradictory understandings of nurse-patient interaction arising through an exploration of 'being authentic' and 'being a chameleon'. The concepts arose during a critical praxis research study exploring nurse-patient relationships in the context of life-threatening or terminal illness. Being authentic can be understood as a dominant view in the nursing literature of the nurse-patient relationship, incorporating the value of being genuine. However, we argue that this concept offers only a partial and inadequate framework from which to understand nurse-patient interaction. The paper argues that nurse-patient relationships develop intersubjectively, with both the nurse and the patient choosing to reveal or conceal aspects of themselves in response to their interactions. Intersubjectivity as a concept provided the nurses in this study with a means for understanding how the nurse and the patient each contribute to interactions; nurse-patient relationships being understood as mutually constructed. These ideas are explored in this paper using examples from the nurses' stories, along with the implications raised for nursing practice.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Palliative Care & School of Postgraduate Nursing, University of Melbourne, Australia.
authors.forename: S K
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Aranda
authors.forename: A F
authors.initials: AF
authors.lastname: Street
mesh_terms: D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D001294:Attitude to Health; D016638:Critical Illness / Q000451:nursing* / Q000523:psychology*; D005086:Existentialism; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009723:Nurse-Patient Relations; D015404:Nursing Methodology Research; D009740:Nursing Staff / Q000523:psychology; D010358:Patient Participation; D012650:Self Disclosure; D012660:Semantics; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013727:Terminal Care / Q000379:methods / Q000523:psychology*