ABSTRACT
IT IS NOT easy to define nursing. Nurse theorists and others have tried for several decades now, but while many definitions hold temporary or partial appeal, there is no universally accepted definition. There is something about nursing that defies tidy ordering into boxes, boxes that might be labelled ‘scientific’, ‘technical’, ‘interpersonal’, ‘conceptual’ or ‘clinical’. As nurses know only too well, articulating the essential components of nursing or, more to the point, the whole that is nursing, has become more rather than less difficult.
