Boundaries: Ethical Implications for What It Means to Be Therapeutic in the Nurse-Person Relationship

The nurse-person relationship is sometimes regarded as the essence of professional nursing practice. Many biomedical nursing definitions and connotations have emerged over time for what it means to practice professional nursing with boundaries in a therapeutic nurse-person relationship. In this column the author compares, contrasts, and offers a unique disciplinary perspective with regard to these terms. Ethical implications for developing professional relationships through the nursing disciplinary lens of the human becoming school of thought are explored.