Concepts

1. Intentional Dialogue – This is the central activity between nurse and person that brings story to life, it is querying emergence of a health challenge story in true presence (Smith & Liehr, 1999). True presence is fully immersed way of being with another, where authenticity and mindfulness prevail. This purposeful engagement with another creates potential for embracing the whole story in the moment as the nurse summons the storyteller’s narrative focusing on the matter most about the complicating health challenge (Smith & Liehr, 2014). Human experiences may be similar in context but in the moment each person have unique experience that makes each experience unique in one way another. These complicating health challenges hurdles life changes that creates uneasiness. And acknowledging the emerging uneasiness will help nurse create a significant interaction with its client.  The nurse can never assume to know what matters most about the health challenges regardless of the extent of experience in a particular practice environment (Smith & Parker, 2015).

2. Connecting with Self-in-Relation – This occurs as reflective awareness on personal history (Smith & Liehr, 1999). It is an active process of recognizing self as related with others in a developing story-plot uncovered through intentional dialogue (Smith & Liehr, 2014).  To connect with self-in-relation, people see themselves not as isolated individuals but as existing and growing in a context, which includes awareness of other people and times, sensitivity to bodily expression, and a sense of history and future in the present moment. As the nurse continues to gather bits of the whole story that the client have regarding with its current health challenges, the nurse should also explore the past history in relation with the present health challenge and also tackles the future thru hopes and dreams related to it as well. When using story path, “ the nurse encourages reckoning with a personal history by traveling to the past to arrive at the story beginning, moving through the middle, and into the future all in the present, thus going into the depths of the story to find unique meaning that often lie hidden in the ambiguity of puzzling dilemmas (Smith & Liehr, 2014).

3. Creating Ease – This is defined as remembering disjointed story moments to experience flow in the midst of anchoring (Smith and Liehr, 1999) to an understanding of the whole story (Smith & Parker, 2015). As the bit of the history of the client is being surface in the context of story plots, self-ventilation or easiness is situated in the complex context. As the bits of story connects in such a way that the client expresses, a pathway is created towards resolution of the health challenge.