This chapter explores how a love researcher goes from having a conception or even a theory of love to actually constructing a love scale. A love scale provides a way to test the validity of a theory. A love scale enables couples to assess one aspect of their compatibility. A love scale provides individuals and couples an opportunity to enhance their love relationships. The one important thing to remember is that as measuring instruments love scales are far from perfect. Love scales are no different from scales for measuring intelligence or personality. An investigator might simultaneously measure intimacy with the intimacy subscale of the Triangular Love Scale and observe a couple in interaction, looking for behaviors signifying trust, caring, compassion, and communication. No scientist today believes that it is possible to capture the entire phenomenon of love through scientific study or through scales that are geared to measure love.

The purpose of the orienting to present reality (OPR) exercise is to help clients with a dissociative disorder, or help dissociative symptoms work with their ego state system to begin to experience present time and place. This generally enhances feelings of reality and security for the system as well as their sense of appropriate caring and protection by the adult client. The OPR Protocol is done in three steps: getting to know the ego state(s), using the workplace, and comparison between the present and the past. Generally, OPR will need to be repeated many times during treatment, since parts may appear who need orientation or reorientation during any phase in the therapy. This includes times during eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) trauma processing when a disoriented part(s) may appear.

Jean Watson’s theory of Human Caring provides a foundation to carefully examine and purposefully enact caring in nursing. Watson’s work often discusses the importance of cultivating personal practices, including mindfulness, to support caring comportment. Watson’s theory is multilayered and complex. In addition to engaging in spiritual practices to deepen understanding, art provides a hands-on approach that will help clarify underlying structures of the theory, the scaffolding upon which the Caritas Processes are placed. This approach moves away from traditional word-based learning and toward an integrated, holistic understanding. Art activities can facilitate deep insight and mindfulness. For Watson’s theory, pointillism, mandalas, and photography have been the most helpful approaches for stimulating growth, insight, and learning. This chapter presents a brief explanation of each art form and its usefulness for studying and practicing Watson’s theory. It also provides an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.

Holding altruistic values related to nonharming and having a desire to help wherever possible is foundational to caring in nursing, as is the practice of lovingkindness with others. Lovingkindness consists of varying behavioral expressions that all arise from one thing; a deeply held desire to love and to care in whatever ways are meaningful and helpful in a given moment, within a given situation. This chapter presents three examples of caring science knowledge development from scholarly sources. These examples include the first Caritas Process and also may encompass one or more of the other Caritas Processes. Sitzman analyzed caring online communication patterns from six studies that examined the process of caring in online nursing classrooms. Six communicative elements emerged from this analysis. These six communicative elements illustrated key aspects of Watson’s Caring Science in practice. They also corresponded with mindfulness practice in the tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh.

Watson’s emphasis on philosophical concepts can be translated into everyday nursing practice by acknowledging specific layers of caring and mindful influence. Transpersonal caring consists of a stream of transpersonal caring moments that radiate in all directions beyond the specific moment, through space, time, and the physical plane, to create endless possibilities of caring influence. In working with the philosophical, metaphysical aspects of caring in Watson’s theory, it is helpful to describe the microcosm of nursing practice using a core and trim model. The constant core of nursing is conscious, deliberative caring, in all its forms and iterations. The trim is comprised of nursing knowledge, technologies, skills, and activities. The core and trim are both necessary to nursing practice. Neither the core nor trim could exist without the other. This chapter presents an orange meditation in the Thich Nhat Hanh mindfulness tradition to support mindful contemplation of nursing’s core and trim.

This Caritas Process acknowledges the mystery surrounding life itself. It challenges Caritas nurses to cultivate awareness of this mystery, and to allow/facilitate others in expressing their mystical experiences without reservation. The practice of looking deeply at simple things will cultivate caring and appreciation for the deep interconnection evident in even the most mundane things. Hebdon, Clayton, and Sitzman conducted a study to evaluate caring intentions of students who completed a massive open online course (MOOC) on mindfulness and caring. An inductive qualitative analysis approach yielded five themes with accompanying sub-themes. Sitzman, Jensen, and Chan examined the usefulness of a MOOC on caring and mindfulness to a widely varied audience that included nurses, allied health professionals and others from all over the world. The success of this MOOC illustrates the interconnectedness of humanity across distance and culture in relation to foundational human concerns like caring (Caritas Process 10).

Nurses who regularly work with people who are dying know that there is always a last dose, a last meal, a last word, a last breath. Although caring for dying patients and their loved ones offers nurses a chance to develop and provide sustaining memories at the most vulnerable times in people’s lives, many nurses are not equipped with the necessary skills to deal with dying and death. There are many purposeful actions that can be taken to help one feel more prepared to care for the dying and their loved ones. The patient whose life nurses are trying to save, even if futile, the one with all of the life-saving and life-preserving procedures, equipment, and medication, is perceived to be higher acuity than the patient who we have accepted is in his or her final hours or days transitioning from life to death.

This chapter discusses how the bioethical standards are virtues of an agent. It interprets the meaning of the swan principle. The term virtue in its original sense meant that a thing was capable of some excellent activity or function. A nurse can make immediate goal to promote and serve the life, health, and well-being of her patient by serving and promoting the virtues of her patient. The virtues of a patient are identical to the virtues of a professional, and in fact they are identical to the virtues of any human being. The ethical virtues are the bioethical standards and standards of a professional nurse’s ethical action. Exclusive attention to caring assumes that there are only simple bioethical dilemmas and that professionals can deal with these dilemmas instinctively. A caring perspective can interfere with, or replace, an interactive relationship.