Review of past lesson:

META - THEORY
A metatheory is not applied directly to practice, but may
have applications to the practice of the field it studies.
For nursing theory, it is the most global (abstract) type
of nursing theory. It focuses on broad issues that
address the profession's most important concepts: the
relationships among human beings, health, the
environment, and nursing itself.
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KATIE ERIKKSON’S

CARITATIVE
CARING
THEORY
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-To learn about Katie
Eriksson and her
background
-To understand the
Caritative Caring
Theory of Eriksson
-To be able to define
the concepts behind
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Eriksson’s theory
OVERVIEW OF
CARITATIVE
Health as a doing, a
being and
becoming in
CARING
THEORY
relation to suffering
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OVERVIEW
Caring science is considered a human science in the
Nordic tradition, as it is deeply rooted in basic issues
of human life and existence.
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KATIE ERIKSSON
-Eriksson was born on November 18, 1943, in
Jakobstad, Finland.

-She belongs to the Finland-Swedish minority in

Finland

-Her native language is Swedish.

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KATIE ERIKSSON
1992- Appointed Professor of Caring Science at Åbo
Akademi University
1993-1999- Held a professorship in caring science at
University of Helsinki, Faculty of Medicine
1996- Served as Director of Nursing at Helsinki University
Central Hospital
Late 1960s and early 1970s- Eriksson
worked in various fields of nursing
practice and continued her studies
at the same time.
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KATIE ERIKSSON
1965 -Graduated at the Helsinki Swedish School of Nursing
1967-Completed her public health nursing specialty
education at the same institution
1970- Graduated from the nursing teacher education
program at Helsinki Finnish School of Nursing
1976- Continued her academic studies at University of
Helsinki, where she received her MA
degree in philosophy in 1974 and her
licentiate degree in 1976
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KATIE ERIKSSON
1982- Defended her doctoral dissertation in pedagogy (The
Patient Care Process—An Approach to Curriculum
Construction within Nursing Education: The Development of
a Model for the Patient Care Process and an Approach for
Curriculum Development Based on the Process of Patient
Care)
1984- Appointed Docent of Caring Science (part time) at
University of Kuopio
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KATIE ERIKSSON

Eriksson’s caritative theory of caring came into clearer

focus internationally in 1997, when the IAHC for the first
time arranged its conference in a European country.

Eriksson is a member of several editorial committees for

international journals in nursing and caring science.
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MAJOR CONCEPTS AND
DEFINITION
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CARITATIVE CARING THEORY
Caritas
Caritas means love and charity. In
caritas, eros and agapé are united,
and caritas is by nature
unconditional love. Caritas, which is
the fundamental motive of caring
science, also constitutes the motive
for all caring.
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CARITATIVE CARING THEORY

Caring communion
It is a form of intimate connection that
characterizes caring. It requires meeting
in time and space, an absolute, lasting
presence. Caring communion is
characterized by intensity and vitality, and
by warmth, closeness, rest, respect,
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honesty, and tolerance.

CARITATIVE CARING THEORY
The act of Caring
The act of caring contains the
caring elements (faith, hope, love,
tending, playing, and learning),
involves the categories of infinity
and eternity, and invites to deep
communion.
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CARITATIVE CARING THEORY
Caritative caring ethics
Caritative caring ethics
comprises the ethics of caring,
the core of which is determined
by the caritas motive. Eriksson
makes a distinction between
caring ethics and nursing
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ethics.
CARITATIVE CARING THEORY

Caring Ethic vs Nursing Ethics

Caring ethics deals with the basic
relation between the patient and the
nurse—the way in which the nurses
meets the patient in an ethical sense.
It is about the approach the nurses
have toward the patient.
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CARITATIVE CARING THEORY

Caring Ethic vs Nursing Ethics

Nursing ethics deals with the ethical
principles and rules that guide their
work or decisions. Caring ethics is the
core of nursing ethics.
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CARITATIVE CARING THEORY

Caritative Caring Ethics

An approach that is based on
ethics in care means that ,
without prejudice, see the
human being with respect, and
that we confirm his or her
absolute dignity.
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CARITATIVE CARING THEORY

Dignity
Dignity constitutes one of the basic concepts of
caritative caring ethics. Human dignity is partly
absolute dignity, partly relative dignity.
Absolute dignity is granted the human being
through creation, while relative dignity is
influenced and formed through culture and
external contexts.
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CARITATIVE CARING THEORY

Invitation
Invitation refers to the act that
occurs when the carer welcomes the
patient to the caring communion.
The concept of invitation finds room
for a place where the human being is
allowed to rest.
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CARITATIVE CARING THEORY
Suffering
Suffering is an ontological concept
described as a human being’s
struggle between good and evil in a
state of becoming.
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CARITATIVE CARING THEORY
Suffering related to illness, to care, and to life
Suffering related to illness is experienced in
connection with illness and treatment
When the patient is exposed to suffering caused
by care or absence of caring, the patient
experiences suffering related to care.
In the situation of being a patient, the
entire life of a human being may be
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experienced as suffering related to life.

CARITATIVE CARING THEORY

The suffering human being

The suffering human being is the concept that
Eriksson uses to describe the patient. The
patient refers to the concept of patiens (Latin),
which means “suffering.” The patient is a
suffering human being, or a human being who
suffers and patiently endures.
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CARITATIVE CARING THEORY
Reconciliation
Reconciliation refers to the drama of
suffering. Reconciliation implies a
change through which a new wholeness
is formed of the life the human being has
lost in suffering. Reconciliation is a
prerequisite of caritas.
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CARITATIVE CARING THEORY
Caring culture
Caring culture is the concept that
Eriksson uses instead of environment. It
characterizes the total caring reality and
is based on cultural elements such as
traditions, rituals, and basic values.
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Respect for the human being, his or her dignity and holiness, forms

CARITATIVE CARING THEORY

the goal of communion and participation in a caring culture.

Caring culture
Respect for the human being, his or her
dignity and holiness, forms the goal of
communion and participation in a caring
culture.
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Major assumptions
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Respect for the human being, his or her dignity and holiness, forms

CARITATIVE CARING THEORY

the goal of communion and participation in a caring culture.

Axioms and Theses

Eriksson distinguishes between two kinds of
major assumptions: axioms and theses.
Axioms are fundamental truths in relation to
the conception of the world; theses are
fundamental statements concerning the
general nature of caring science.
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The axioms are as follows:
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The human being is
fundamentally an entity of body,
soul, and spirit.
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The human being is
fundamentally a religious being.
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The human being is fundamentally
holy. Human dignity means accepting
the human obligation of serving with
love, of existing for the sake of others.
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Communion is the basis for all
humanity. Human beings are
fundamentally interrelated to an
abstract and/or concrete other
in a communion.
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Caring is something human by
nature, a call to serve in love.
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Suffering is an inseparable part
of life. Suffering and health are
each other’s prerequisites.
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Health is more than the absence
of illness. Health implies
wholeness and holiness.
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The human being lives in a
reality that is characterized by
mystery, infinity, and eternity.
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The theses are as follows:
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Ethos confers ultimate meaning
on the caring context.
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The basic motive of caring is the
caritas motive.
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The basic category of caring is
suffering.
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Caring communion forms the
context of meaning of caring and
derives its origin from the ethos of
love, responsibility, and sacrifice,
namely, caritative ethics.
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Health means a movement in
becoming, being, and doing
while striving for wholeness and
holiness, which is compatible
with endurable suffering.
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Caring implies alleviation of suffering
in charity, love, faith, and hope. Natural
basic caring is expressed through
tending, playing, and learning in a
sustained caring relationship, which is
asymmetrical by nature.
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THE FOUR METAPARADIGM
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Love and charity, or caritas, as
Nursing the basic motive of caring has
been found in Eriksson as a
principal idea even in her early
works. The history of ideas
indicates that the foundation of
the caring professions through the
ages has been an inclination to
help and minister to those
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suffering.
CARITATIVE CARING THEORY
Nursing
Caring is something natural and
original. Eriksson thinks that the
substance of caring can be
understood only by a search for its
origin. This origin is in the origin of
the concept and in the idea of natural
caring.
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CARITATIVE CARING THEORY

Nursing
Caritative caring relates to the
innermost core of nursing. Errikson
distinguishes between caring
nursing and nursing care.
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CARITATIVE CARING THEORY

Nursing
Nursing care is based on the nursing
care process, and it represents good
care only when it is based on the
innermost core of caring.
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CARITATIVE CARING THEORY

Nursing
Caring nursing represents a kind of
caring without prejudice that
emphasizes the patient and his or her
suffering and desires.
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CARITATIVE CARING THEORY

Nursing
The core of the caring relationship,
between nurse and patient is an open
invitation that contains affirmation that
the other is always welcome. The
constant open invitation is involved in
what Eriksson today calls the act of
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caring.
The conception of the human
The human being in Eriksson’s theory is
being based on the axiom that the
human being is an entity of
body, soul, and spirit. She
emphasizes that the human
being is fundamentally a
religious being, but all human
beings have not recognized this
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dimension.
CARITATIVE CARING THEORY
The human being

The human being is seen as in constant

becoming. He is understood in terms of the
dual tendencies that exist within him,
engaged in a continued struggle and living in
a tension between being and nonbeing.
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CARITATIVE CARING THEORY
The human being
The human being we meet in care is
creative and imaginative, has desires and
wishes, and is able to experience phenomena.
When the human being is entering the caring
context, he or she becomes a patient in the
original sense of the concept—a suffering
human being.
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Eriksson uses the concept of
Environment ethos in accordance with
Aristotle’s idea that ethics is
derived from ethos. In Eriksson’s
sense, the ethos of caring
science, as well as that of caring,
consists of the idea of love and
charity and respect and honor of
the holiness and dignity of the
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human being.
CARITATIVE CARING THEORY

Environment
Good caring and true knowledge
become visible through ethos. Ethos
originally refers to home, or to the place
where a human being feels at home. It
symbolizes a human being’s innermost
space, where he appears in his
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nakedness.
Eriksson defines health as
Health soundness, freshness, and well-
being. The subjective dimension,
or well-being, is emphasized
strongly. In the current axiom of
health, health implies being
whole in body, soul, and spirit.
Health means as a pure concept
wholeness and holiness.
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CARITATIVE CARING THEORY
Health
As a human being’s inner health potential is
touched, a movement occurs that becomes
visible in the different dimensions of health
as doing, being, and becoming with a
wholeness that is unique to human beings.
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“Caritative caring means that we take “caritas”
into use when caring for the human being in
health and suffering …. Caritative caring is a
manifestation of the love that ‘just exists’…Caring
communion, true caring, occurs when the one
caring in a spirit of caritas alleviates the suffering
of the patient”
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-Katie Errikson
Importance of
Caritative Theory

⬤ Education

⬤ Research

⬤ Practice
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Shaped the nurses’
education as well as other
professions EXAMPLES
● Development of caring-science centered
EDUCATION curriculum and caring didactics continued in
the educational and research program
● Clinical practitioners can take academic
courses in caring science based on Eriksson's
theory as part of their continuous education.

● Erikssons’s view of caring science has

been adapted by various professions in
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their practice
Is the framework that provides
perspective and guidance in
research study to improve
clinical practice.
EXAMPLES
RESEARCH ● Fredriksson and Eriksson’s (2003) utilization of
Caritative Theory as a framework to infer the
potential of the caring dialogue in alleviating the
suffering of patients in mental institutions.

● Caritative Theory was refined and a

model of concept development was
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created
Foundational knowledge that
enables nurses to care for their
patients and guides their actions

EXAMPLES
PRACTICE
● Application of Caritative Theory in
elderly nursing homes (Frilund,
Eriksson, & Fagerstrom, 2014)

● Intercultural Caring (Wikberg &

Eriksson, 2008)
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Conclusion
Eriksson’s Caritas-based theory and her whole caring science
thinking focused on the patient-nurse relationship, which
provides care through love and Caritas with respect and
reverence for human holiness and dignity. Eriksson emphasizes
that caritative caring relates to the innermost core of nursing
(caring). She means that nursing care is based on the nursing
care process, and it represents good care only when it is based
on the innermost core of nursing.
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Leader of the Foundation
Case Study Home at the Psychiatric
by Ulf Nursing Home in Finland
that for 15 years has based
Donner its practice on Eriksson’s
caritative theory of caring.
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Even at an early stage in their serving in caring
science, they the caregivers recognized themselves in
the caring science theory, which stresses the healing
force of love and compassion in the form of tending,
playing, and learning in faith, hope, and charity.
In their effort to nourish and cleanse, that which
constitutes the basic movement of tending, they often
recognize the importance of teaching the patient to be
able to mourn disappointments and affirm the possibilities
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of forgiveness in the movement of reconciliation.

In the act of caring, they strive for openness with
regard to the patient’s face and a confirmative
attitude that responds to the appeal that they can
recognize that the patient directs to us. When they
as caregivers respond to the patient’s appeal for
charity, they are faced with the task of confirming
the holiness of the other as a human being. Their
constant effort is to make it possible for the patient
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to reestablish his or her dignity, accomplish his or

her human mission, and enter true communion.
References
Fredriksson, L., & Eriksson, K. (2003). The ethics of the caring
conversation. Nursing Ethics, 10(2), 138–148.
https://doi.org/10.1191/0969733003ne588oa
Frilund, M., Eriksson, K., & Fagerström, L. (2013). The caregivers’
possibilities of providing ethically good care for older people - a
study on caregivers’ ethical approach. Scandinavian Journal of
Caring Sciences, 28(2), 245–254. https://doi.org/10.1111/scs.12047
Wikberg, A., & Eriksson, K. (2008). Intercultural caring - an abductive
model. Scandinavian Journal of Caring Sciences, 22(3), 485–496.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-6712.2007.00555.x
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