Understanding nurse practitioner-patient communication : reconceptualizing power and relationships through music metaphor

Abstract

In nursing literature, power is conceptualized as an object transferred, distributed, controlled or conquered by empowerment. In this management care paradigm, the service of care provides power to achieve the product of health. The socio-philosophical framework proposes power as intra-interpersonal set of relationships. Interdisciplinary collaboration allowed discovering power-and-relationships as inseparable mind-body subunits constituting micro and macro health interactions, through a mixed methods instrumental case study. Control and power mechanisms were revealed analyzing body movements and conversations in Case A-15min- and Case B-16.10min- nurse practitioner-patient videotaped encounters. Catalyzed by a hermeneutical music metaphor this thesis proposes relational healing care. Despite interruptions and disruptive postures, nurse practitioners-patients reverse differentials by sharing potentials in simultaneous connections. Power balance is developed by equitable-inequitable communication. Like diverse related tones, nurse practitioner-patient is an Intermelody solving tension continuum in concordance. Health struggles in that way are nothing to be fixed, but healing cycles to be played.