ABSTRACT

This chapter explores in greater depth Quine's concept of the indeterminacy of radical translation. Zagmunt Bauman has suggested that three modalities exist: narcissism where the individual lives for the self; a parasitic state in which the individual lives for the other; and a symbiotic state where the interests of the self and the other are integrated. Children's nursing is perhaps unique in the family of nursing in that the symbiotic state is played out not just between the nurse and the patient in a sociopolitical culture of healthcare, but in a triad of child-carer-nurse in a sociopolitical culture of healthcare influenced by a social/cultural understanding of children, childhood and parenting. Many children who require children's nursing have encountered nurses and other healthcare professionals previously. To empathise, to understand how the children experience illness in their communities, the nurse has to in a sense become the thou.