The relationship as possibility and future gift in mental health encounters

Abstract

This article highlights the lived experience of the relationship between the mental health nurse and the patient in institutional treatment. The premise for a relationship between persons in professional settings is the awareness of the responsibility that the relationship is a possibility rather than a tool, and that the relationship is a lived encounter additional to being a factual experience. Any relationship – personal and professional – in this understanding is an action as well as a re-action, as both parties are at mercy of each other and thus they can only partly plan and predict the process and the outcome of their relationship. We explore the relationship between nurse and patient, in terms of the tension between difference and togetherness, and suggest solicitude to be a core quality in mental health relations.