Care is a way of being and behaving with others. It is not merely a collection of technical actions, but rather a synthesis of experiences and knowledge shared between individuals—an act that helps achieve holistic balance and the identity of the personal self. Etymologically, the Latin cogitare—to think—is the ancestor of the verb “to care,” which makes sense: cognitive judgment is necessary to understand and interpret reality. This concept also applies to our health and that of those around us—discussing things like sleep difficulties, stomach issues or marital problems in everyday conversations can be part of providing support and care, whether through advice, techniques or recommendations. As Alexander Pope once noted, the most interesting debates often stem from trivial matters.
When we think about care, its scope seems vast. To focus more meaningfully, however, we must examine its history and connection to nursing—a discipline grounded not in curing, but in caring. Its core values are human dignity, integrity, autonomy, altruism and social justice. The care of the sick has always followed humanity, and here lies the essence of nursing: it demands a deep ethical understanding to address others’ adversities. I prefer to refer to nursing with Alexander Luria’s term—“romantic science”—a bridge between literature and clinic, between philosophy and technique. In this context, the name of Norwegian nurse Kari Martinsen stands out.
After graduating in 1964 and specializing in mental health, Martinsen turned her focus to philosophy and phenomenology, believing these disciplines offered deeper insight into the art of caregiving—an idea she developed in works like Care and Vulnerability. For her, nursing should be viewed as a field interwoven with philosophy, framing care as a moral act aimed at human beings—social beings dependent on others for survival and well-being. As she wrote, “Philosophy can be informed by nursing practices and nursing can be informed by philosophy. Philosophy can inform science and science can inform philosophy. In other words, there is interaction” (2016, p.2).
Providing such care requires an ethical approach grounded in trust, empathy and love. This, in turn, fosters effective therapeutic relationships between nurses and patients. In her philosophical analysis of nursing, Martinsen drew upon three major thinkers.
First was Karl Marx, whose arguments helped her articulate the crisis and reality within the nursing profession. This required engagement with Critical Theory, developed by the Frankfurt School in the early 20th century. Critical Theory challenges traditional Western thought, highlighting its scientific neutrality and unreliability, thus rejecting the illusion of objectivity. Applied to healthcare, this theory offers a dialectical view crucial for nursing, as it encourages learning through feedback and moves away from invisible, submissive, purely technical roles.
This approach critiques the overwhelming number of tasks nurses perform—many delegated by other healthcare professionals—which often limits the time they can truly dedicate to patient care, leading to a dehumanized discipline. Critical Theory offers nurses a reflective mindset, encouraging self-awareness, transformation and a sense of responsibility and autonomy.
Martinsen also embraced the ideas of Edmund Husserl, rejecting positivism in favor of a perspective that views individuals in their entirety, within their social context. Grounded in transcendental phenomenology, she advocated that nurses suspend their judgments to reach the essence of phenomena—achieved through the interactions between nurse and patient. These interactions reveal the patient’s core vulnerability, which the caregiver must address.
Finally, Martinsen drew on Maurice Merleau-Ponty, who rejected Cartesian dualism and emphasized the importance of the body in perception and experience. “External perception and bodily self-perception vary together because they are two sides of the same act” (1975, p. 247), he wrote. The body carries intentionality—it is lived, and its ability to act shapes our experience. In illness, a person’s sense of self becomes disconnected from their body, leading to both physical and psychological struggles. Martinsen followed Merleau-Ponty’s lead in asserting that nursing engages the body fully: the nurse uses her own body to care for the patient’s body.
A key part of Martinsen’s theory is the importance of perception in clinical judgment. She distinguished between “perceiving” and “recording”: perception involves emotional openness to the reality of the patient, while recording is a Cartesian, data-driven act. She referenced the parable of the Good Samaritan to explain this—arguing that the Samaritan didn’t just record the facts but was emotionally moved by the wounded stranger (2011, p.18).
Martinsen used terms like “the eye of the heart” and “the recording eye” to describe this dynamic, which also touches on the professionalization of nursing. As Mohammadipour et al. note, patients often associate a nurse’s presence with care quality. For Martinsen, patients are shaped by cultural, moral and socioeconomic contexts, and the nurse must enter that space to meet their vulnerability with care.
In the wake of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, rising loneliness, burnout and growing dehumanization in parts of healthcare, Martinsen’s philosophy of care remains a vital guide for understanding what it truly means to care—and to be a nurse.
References
Martinsen, E. H. (2011). Care for Nurses Only? Medicine and the Perceiving Eye. Health Care Anal, 19, 15–27.
Martinsen, K. (2006). Care and Vulnerability. Akribe As.
Merleau-Ponty, M. (1975). Phenomenology of Perception. Península.
Mohammadipour, F., AtashzadehShoorideh, F., Parvizy, S., & Hosseini, M. (2017). An explanatory study on the concept of nursing presence from the perspective of patients admitted to hospitals. J Clin Nurs., 26, 4313–4324.
Øye, C., & Mekki, T.E. (2016). The articulation of impressions. An interview with Kari Martinsen. International Practice Development Journal, 6(1), 1-8.
