Biography and Career of Katie Eriksson
MAJOR CONCEPTS & DEFINITIONS
• Eriksson was born on November 18,
1943, in Jakobstad, Finland.
• She belongs to the Finland Swedish
minority in Finland, and her native
language is Swedish
She is a 1965 graduate of the Helsinki
Swedish School of Nursing, and in 1967,
she completed her public health nursing
specialty education at the same
institution.
Biography and Career of Katie Eriksson
•
After taking nursing in 1965 to be able to
practice nursing, she became a nursing
instructor at Helsinki Swedish Medical
Institute
She currently works as a professor of health
sciences at Abo Akademi University in Vaasa,
where she built a master's degree program in
health sciences, and a four-year postgraduate
studies program leading to a doctoral degree in
health sciences.
Katie Eriksson's Contribution to Nursing Theory:
Theory of Caritative Caring
This model of nursing distinguishes between
caring ethics, the practical relationship between
the patient and the nurse, and nursing ethics.
Nursing ethics are the ethical principles that
guide a nurse's decision-making abilities.
Caritative caring consists of love and charity,
which is also known as caritas, and respect and
reverence for human holiness and dignity.
According to the theory, suffe-ring that occurs
as a result of a lack of caritative care is a
violation of human dignity.
MAJOR CONCEPTS AND DEFINITION
.CARITAS
• Caritas - means love and charity. In caritas,
eros and agapé are united, and caritas is
by nature unconditional love.
• Caritas, which is the fundamental motive
of caring science, also constitutes the
motive for all caring.
It means that caring is an endeavor to mediate
faith, hope, and love through tending, playing,
and learning.
Caring Communion
Caring communion constitutes the context of
the meaning of caring and is the structure
that determines caring reality.
It is a form of intimate connection that
characterizes caring. Caring communion
requires MAJOR CONCEPTS & DEFINITIONS
meeting in time and space, an absolute, lasting
presence
The Act of Caring
The act of caring contains the caring elements
(faith, hope, love, tending, playing, and
learning), involves the categories of infinity and
eternity, and invites to deep communion. The
act of caring is the art of making something very
special out of something less special.
Caritative Caring Ethics
Caritative caring ethics comprises the ethics of
caring, the core of which is determined by the
caritas motive.
Caring ethics deals with the basic relation
between
the patient and the nurse—the way in which
the nurse meets the patient in an ethical sense.
•
It is about the approach we have
toward the patientCaring ethics deals
with the basic relation between the
patient and the nurse—the way in
which the nurse meets the patient in an
ethical sense. It is about the approach
we have toward the patient.
Dignity
Dignity constitutes one of the basic concepts of
caritative caring ethics.
Human dignity is partly absolute dignity,
partly relative dignity
Invitation
• Invitation refers to the act that occurs
when the carer welcomes the patient to the
caring communication.
Suffering
•
Suffering is an ontological concept
described as a human being’s struggle
between good and evil in a state of
becoming.
Suffering implies in some sense dying a
Suffering Related to Illness, to Care, and to
Life
Three different forms of suffering:
• Suffering related to illness is experienced
in connection with illness and treatment.
•
Not to be taken seriously, not to be
welcome, being blamed,
• Being subjected to the exercise of power
are various forms of suffering related to
care.
The Suffering Human Being
 The suffering human being is the concept
that uses to describe the patient.

The patient is a suffering human being,
or a human being who suffers and
patiently endures
Reconciliation
• Reconciliation refers to the drama of
suffering.
•
Reconciliation implies a change through
which a new wholeness is formed of the
life the human being has lost in suffering.
• Reconciliation is a prerequisite of caritas
. Caring culture
Is the concept that Eriksson (1987a) uses
instead of environment. It characterizes the
total caring reality and is based on cultural
elements such as traditions, rituals, and
basic values
.METAPARADIGM
Person - is based on the axiom that the human
being is an entity of body, soul, and spirit.
 She emphasizes that the human being is
fundamentally a religious being
 The human being is fundamentally holy

The human being is seen as in constant
becoming; he is constantly in change and
therefore
never in a state of full completion..
The human being is fundamentally
dependent on communion; he is
dependent on another, and it is in the
relationship between a concrete other
(human being) and an abstract other
(some form of God)
•
When the human being is entering the
caring context, he or she becomes a
patient in the original sense of the
concept—a suffering human being
ENVIRONMENT
The ethos of caring science, as well as that of
caring, consists of the idea of love and charity
and respect and honor of the holiness and
dignity of the human being.
• Ethos is the sounding board of all caring.
there is an
“inner ought to,” a target of caring “
She distinguishes between caring nursing and
nursing care
*She means that nursing care is based on the
nursing care process, and it represents good
care only when it is based on the innermost
core of caring.
The core of the caring relationship, between
nurse and patient is an open invitation that
contains affirmation that the other is always
welcome.

• Ethos originally refers to home, or to the

place where a
human being feels at home.

• Ethos and ethics belong together, and in

the caring
culture, they become one.

. HEALTH
Health as soundness, freshness, and well-being.
Health implies being whole in body, soul, and
spirit
Health means as a pure concept wholeness and
holiness.
Different dimensions of health as “doing, being,
and becoming with a wholeness that is unique
to human beings

.NURSING
Caritas constitutes the inner force that is
connected with the mission to care. A carer
beams forth what Eriksson calls claritas, or the
strength and light of beauty.
The fundamentals of natural caring are
constituted by the idea of motherliness, which
implies cleansing and nourishing, and
spontaneous and unconditional love.

Emphasizes that caritative caring relates to the

innermost core of nursing.