The present article explores the characteristics of community psychiatric nursing as it is revealed in 2 Norwegian counties. Sixteen psychiatric nurses participated in a qualitative research interview, based on a phenomenological and hermeneutic understanding. The findings show that the psychiatric nurses act as ‘liberos’ in the community health services. Paraphrasing the nurse as a ‘libero’, is done to depict her functions: a libero is the hindmost defence player on a football field, who has the freedom to establish interplay and unorthodox alliances. The libero can move freely all over the field, varying between attack and defence. In this study, the nurses show that expectations of being socially involved are understood as something they ought to incorporate both in their professional knowledge and practice. The obligation towards the individual client is, however, deeply rooted in their attitudes. Community psychiatric nursing seemed to develop in a dialectical process between a humanistic-existential approach and an object-centred approach. Based on the findings, one can differentiate 2 modes of practice: i) the relation model and ii) the public health model. Most of the nurses have their anchorage in the first model, but they are apparently moving in the direction of the second.
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Jan Kåre Hummelvoll (1996) studied this question.