“Making Special”

A Framework for Understanding the Art of Holistic Nursing

Barbato Gaydos, H. Lea Ph.D., R.N., C.S., H.N.C.

University of Colorado, Beth-El College of Nursing and Health Sciences

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I wish to acknowledge the research assistance of Susan Conde, R.N.

H. Lea Barbato Gaydos teaches at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, Beth-El College of Nursing and Health Sciences. Her areas of clinical expertise include community-psychiatric/mental health nursing and holistic nursing. She is also a visual artist and has had many solo and group exhibitions. She was named the national Holistic Nurse of the Year for 1998 by the American Holistic Nurses' Association. Her study and research interests focus on aesthetic knowing in nursing. In her practice, she works with people to cocreate their life stories in a life journey portrait. Recent publications include “The Living End: Life Journeys of Hospice Nurses” (Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care Nursing, 2004); “The Art of Holistic Nursing and the Human Health Experience (in Holistic Nursing: Handbook for Practice, 2004); ”The Cocreative Aesthetic Process: A New Model for Aesthetics in Nursing“ (International Journal of Human Caring, 2003).

Journal of Holistic Nursing 22(2):p 152-163, June 2004.

Holistic nurses demonstrate interest in and concern for aesthetics in nursing; however, the relationship of holistic nursing to aesthetics in nursing lacks clarity. Challenges to the study of aesthetics in nursing arise from too little discourse on the topic and lack of consensus on language and methods of inquiry. Nevertheless, aesthetic knowing is a fundamental pattern of knowing in nursing and the one that mediates and integrates all other patterns of knowing in nursing action. A behavioral theory of aesthetics provides a framework for exploring the relationship of holistic nursing to aesthetic knowing and the art of nursing. Synthesis of this framework with holistic nursing core values and standards of practice suggests that holistic nursing is more than perspective; it is an aesthetic.