Spirituality in terminal illness. An alternative view of theory.

I use data and insights gained from 10 years of research and practice on psychosocial and spiritual aspects of living with HIV to outline a critique of extant knowledge on spirituality and to propose an alternative. Nurses are in an excellent position to experience the human spirit. We can use the resultant understandings to be present with others and to become more self-aware and self-loving. I present here my philosophy and personal rules for understanding the spirit that were taught to me by patients and knowledgeable research participants as they helped me to see how my professional objectivity and application of professional knowledge were anathema to their self-discovery. I present a critique of some of the confining aspects of nursing theory, particularly that which is built on developmental frameworks to show how our vision is skewed negatively by these frameworks, and how it may cause us to look down at patients rather than at them as equals.