In these observations and thinkings I was attempting to understand, sort out, and clarify the questions that underlay my puzzlement. This puzzlement arose out of my 18 years in nursing practice and education. In a theory course and a philosophy of science course, while in doctoral study, I recognized and learned to label my unrest and puzzlement as a recognition of the need for nursing theory.
In 1966 in discussing my purposes for doctoral study, I expressed this unrest and puzzlement. I viewed my varied past experiences in nursing as excellent. I sought time to reflect on the past 24 years of living nursing to see what it could tell me, and to come to better understand its meaning to the profession of nursing. The philosophical nature of these questions and what they express of myself is evident. Such personal revelation at this time is no risk, and withholding would only deprive myself and others of the answers that might be brought forth.
As in most school situations initially responding to class assignments and involvement in new clinical situations consumed my time and thwarted my personal, professional interests. When I commented on this my interests were interpreted to me as a desire to live in the past. Living in the present was recommended and terms like "up-to-date" and "progressive" were employed. I felt stopped cold. I had never viewed myself as old fashioned or non-progressive. Many of my past nursing experiences were still avant-garde as compared with general current practices.
There was something different though in recalling and reflecting on the past as opposed to current experiences. One's past would be visible in view of how one approached and experienced the present. Self-confrontation moved me beyond confining myself either to the past or to the present. In my writings one could detect a comparison of what had been known with what was coming to be known. It was as if a light of a different hue lit up the whole--past and present--as a different scene. Similarly I viewed and experienced my clinical experience differently. I gained awareness of a quality of my being that always had been there, but which I hid. Now I valued this part, struggled with it, and expressed it directly with courage, integrity, and pride. The power with which this self-actualization imbued me has been sculpturing my "I" into a form of my choosing ever more acceptable to me, and accepting of others.