Philosophy

of Caring

“Nursing is founded on caring

for life, on neighborly love, …
At the same time it is necessary
that the nurse is professionally
educated” (Martinsen, 2006, p.Karl Martinsen
78).
 PERSONAL EDUCATIONAL & WORK
INFORMATION
• Kari Marie Martinsen, a nurse and philosopher, was
born in Oslo, the capital of Norway, in 1943, during the
WW II German occupation of Norway
• Martinsen began her studies at Ullevål College of
Nursing in Oslo, graduating in 1964.
• She worked in clinical practice at Ullevål hospital for 1
year, while doing preparatory studies for university
entry.
• she specialized as a psychiatric nurse in 1966 and
worked for 2 years at Dikemark Psychiatric Hospital
near Oslo, where she also was engaged for several
years in psychiatric care of outpatients.
 Work Experience
• While practicing as a nurse, she became concerned about social inequalities
in general and in the health service in particular.
• Health, illness, care, and treatment were obviously distributed unequally.
• She also became disturbed over perceived discrepancies between
healthcare theories, ideals, and goals on the one hand, and practical results
of nursing, medicine, and the health service on the other.
• She began to pose questions about how a society and a profession must be
constituted to support and aid the ill and the unemployed.

How the
• One particularly poignant question was,

nursing profession must

operate if it is not to let down
 Theoretical Sources
Martinsen looked to three philosophers in
particular:
1. Karl Marx (1818-1883), the German philosopher,
politician, and social theorist;
2. Edmund Husserl (1859-1938), the German
philosopher and founder of phenomenology; and
3. Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961), the French
philosopher and phenomenologist of the body.
Later, she broadened her theoretical sources to
include other philosophers, theologians, and
sociologists.
 Major Concepts and definitions
Care- “forms not only the value base of nursing, but is a
fundamental precondition for our lives.
Care is the positive development of the person through the
Good” ( Martinesen, 1990, p.60)
Care is a trinity: relational, practical, and moral
simultaneously.
Caring is directed outward toward the situation of the other.
caring requires education and training. “Without professional
knowledge, concern for the patient becomes mere
sentimentality. She is clear that guardianship negligence or
sentimentality are not expressions of care.
Major Concepts and definitions
 Major Concepts and definitions
Care- “forms not only the value base of nursing, but is a
fundamental precondition for our lives.
Care is the positive development of the person through the
Good” ( Martinesen, 1990, p.60)
Care is a trinity: relational, practical, and moral
simultaneously.
Caring is directed outward toward the situation of the other.
caring requires education and training. “Without professional
knowledge, concern for the patient becomes mere
sentimentality. She is clear that guardianship negligence or
sentimentality are not expressions of care.
• PROFESSIONAL JUDGMENT AND DISCERNMENT
• These qualities are linked to the concrete. It is through the exercise
of professional judgment in practical, living contexts that we learn
clinical observation. It is “training not only to see, listen and touch
clinically, but to see, listen and touch clinically in a good way”
(Martinsen, 1993b, p. 147). The patient makes an impression on us,
we are moved bodily, and the impression is sensuous. “Because
perception has an analogue character, it evokes variation and
context in the situation” (Martinsen, 1993b, p. 146). One thing is
reminiscent of another, and this recollection creates a connection
between the impressions in the situation, professional knowledge,
and previous experience. Discretion expresses professional
knowledge through the natural senses and everyday language
(Martinsen, 2005, 2006).