2. Theoretical Background
A person-centered approach is a valuable perspective for
nursing [30]. In a person-centered approach, the patient is
placed at the center of all care; the patient’s experience of
health and ill-health is taken into consideration during care
and treatment and a focus is placed on an active collaboration
between the nurse and patient [31]. The patient needs to
be understood as a person [31]. Different models exist for
implementing person-centered care across multiple health
care settings [32]. Originally introduced into acute mental
health nursing, the Tidal model [31, 33, 34] is now recognized
as a mid-range nursing theory [31]. In the Tidal model
a range of focused assessments generate person-centered
interventions that emphasize a person’s extant resources and
capacity for solution-finding [34]. An open, honest, nonjudgmental,
and supportive therapeutic alliance promotes
personal development, from fragmentation into wholeness
and from despair into hope [31]. Barker and BuchananBarker
[35] prefer to conceptualize recovery as a process of
assisting people to recover their personal identity through
telling their own story in their own voice. The challenge for
nurses is to facilitate healing through carefully understanding
and creating learning out of patients’ experiences.