Anthroposophic nursing care goes beyond the communicative approach of soft skills. Nurses form a bridge between treatment of the body and treatment of the patient's soul and spirit by actively valuing the human body, paying attention to touch, using warmth, cold, air, and light to promote healing processes, and much more. Although physical wellbeing, autonomy, and youthfulness are central to our modern materialistic culture, our bodies actually receive little respect and appreciation, especially when they become ill and eventually old. Nursing values need to be rediscovered that respect the debased human being, embrace illness as a part of existence, and allow time for healing. A key aspect of this book involves the idea and practice of "nursing gestures," relating inner attitudes and practical nursing activities to one another in detail through numerous examples and overviews.

Anthroposophic Nursing Practice shows not only the possibility, but also the practical experience of nursing care, which aims to be both holistic and optimistic. The knowledge and perspectives gathered in this book have matured through the work of several generations of anthroposophically oriented nurses, all striving to refine a truly integrative nursing practice.

This unique book will no doubt become the classic text on the important practice of anthroposophic nursing.

C O N T E N T S

Introduction to the English edition Adam Blanning, MD
Preface by Rolf Heine
Foreword to the fourth German edition by Matthias Girke, MD
Foreword to the third German edition by Michaela Glöckler, MD

METHODICAL-DIDACTICAL FOUNDATIONS

1. How Do You Learn Anthroposophic Nursing? (by Rolf Heine)

ANTHROPOSOPHY AND NURSING

2. Observation as a Method of Self-development and a Therapeutic Element in Care and Destiny (by Monika Layer)
3. The Anthropological Foundations of Nursing Extended by Anthroposophy (by Frances Bay)
4. Illness and Destiny (by Renate Hasselbert & Rolf Heine)
5. Nursing as a Path of Development (by Renate Hasselbert & Rolf Heine)
6. Meditation in Nursing (by Rolf Heine)
7. The Concept of Nursing Gestures as a Model for Nursing Care (by Rolf Heine)

ELEMENTS OF NURSING CARE

8. Rhythm (by Annegret Camps)
9. The Human Warmth Organism and Its Care (by Ada van der Star)
10. Variations on Whole-body Washing (by Rolf Heine)
11. Preventing Bedsores, Pneumonia, and Thrombosis in Seriously Ill Patients (by Rolf Heine)
12. Rhythmical Einreibung According to Wegman/Hauschka (by Ursula von der Heide & Monika Layer)
13. Compresses in Anthroposophically Extended Nursing Care (by Gabriele Weber)
14. Active Principles in External Applications (by Rolf Heine)

SPECIALIZATIONS IN NURSING

15. Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Puerperium as Stages of Human Becoming (by Anna Wilde & Regula Markwalder)
16. Neonatal Nursing Care. Care Is Education--Education Is Care (Inga Heine & Rolf Heine)
17. The Concept of Development as the Basis for Anthroposophically Extended Pediatric Nursing (by Carola Edelmann)
18. Psychiatric Nursing (by Klaus Adams)
19. From the Question of Meaning in Cancer to the Cultivation of the Senses (by Bernhard Deckers)
20. Anthroposophic Oncology Nursing (by Jana Schier)
21. Geriatric Care as Care for Human Beings (by Ada van der Star & Annegret Camps)
22. Aspects of Caring for Elderly People who are Mentally Ill or Confused (by Christel Kaul)
23. Caring for People with Dementia in Inpatient Facilities (by Heike Schaumann)
24. Palliative Care (by Christoph von Dach & Sasha Gloor)
25. The Care and Accompaniment of the Dying and the Deceased (by Gundren Buchol)

EPILOGUE by Rolf Heine

List of Products Mentioned, with US and European equivalents
About the Authors
Index

This book is a translation from German of Anthroposophische Pflegepraxis--Grundlagen und Anregungen für alltägliches Handeln, 4th edition (Salumed Verlag, Berlin, Germany, 2017). Translated from the German by Carol Brousseau.