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Liehr and Smith: Story Theory

Introduction
Our past is being trapped in the well of stories. What is this story due to? Is this

story stems from innocence or body of knowledge? And how do stories deal every standard in

our life?

Life is all about stories. Stories impact our lives. We each have one to fill in. Somehow,

some says “Sky is the limit” in dealing with such a tale. With this, it leads stories to access better

attachment in a life of every one of us in different walks and outlooks of our existence.

Earthlings basically use stories to create social connections and to established a good

communication by sharing different ideas. Concocted up a tale is commonly used to entertained,

educate, records events, and convey cultural behavior. Thus, portraying real or fictitious belief,

historical or contextual is part of every individual in a way of communicating. Through the years

stories is the oldest form of communication bond between generations to generations, culture to

culture, and generates informational communications to foster a strong relationship. Until such

modern innovation in a life cycle has change, the course of a tale also developed and grow. A

story makes history and theory makes story. The broad definition of a traditional oral story

telling has reborn and somehow called as “Digital story telling” that combines the best of two

worlds. The “new world” of digitized and social media that can influence people around the

archipelago. And the art of telling stories the “old world”. The Digital way of telling story uses

multimedia tools to bring narratives to life. Nonetheless, digital stories can be used to explain a

concept, to reflect on a personal experience, to retell a historical event. Through digital age the

field in health provides an easy outlet to promote translational health communication and
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effective data dissemination, in ways it allows internet users to utilize existing health

information.

Without further do, digital or traditional the important is we learned, we understand and we

empathized hearing the stories of others.

Explanation of the Concept

Stories are the fundamental dimension of the human experience. It promotes connection

to human to human and times to other times (Taylor,1996). Stories makes up to express for who

we are, what we’ve been through, and where we going. Furthermore, stories help us to

understand a person’s inevitable experience.

The purpose of story theory is to describe and explain story as the foundation for a nurse-

person-health-promoting process. It was developed to provide a story-centered structure for

guiding nursing practice and gain a systematic data gathering and analysis in research.

Emphasizes the place of story, researchers seek to understand that healing potential of a person is

through stories. In this context “The Eye towards the future” embedded in an oral tradition to

discuss about story as a vehicle of a nurse-person-health-promoting process that connotes the

therapeutic value of storytelling (Banks-Wallace 2002). The human story is a health story in the

broadest sense. By which several extant nursing theories explicitly or implicitly incorporate

dimensions of story (Boykin & Schoenhofer,2001; Newman 1999; Parse 1981; Peplau 1991;

Watson 1997). The concept of storytelling is not new to nursing. Story theory was accepted as a

middle range nursing theory in 1999 and being published to pave the way for nursing

application. Story telling marked out as a narrative event that allows a person to connect with

themselves through conversation (Smith & Liehr 2013). Moreover, Story Theory is applicable

when a nurse wants to understand what matters to someone living through a health challenge.
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That aims patient’s self-awareness and eventual resolution and /or acceptance to their illness. It

forges ahead the potential in nursing’s discipline’s role in the prevention and management of

disease in the future.

In this context it comprises into three interrelated concepts: (A.) Intentional dialogue, (B.)

Connecting with self-in-relation. And (C.) Creating ease. Yet, encompasses common processes in

gathering data in a narrative happening of to connect self-in-relation through intentional dialogue

to create ease. Ease emerges in view of accepting the whole story as one’s own and process for

attentive embracing. Way back 2007, the method of story inquiry research was being proposed

and closely tied to story theory and being used when analyzing collected stories for the purpose

of addressing a complicating health challenged (Liehr & Smith, 2007). It consists of 7 phases of

inquiry which provides framework that can utilized to guide nursing practice and research. This

are: Gathering the Theory; Reconstructing the Theory; Connecting it to Literature; Naming the

Complicated Health Challenge; Describing the Story; Identifying Movement Towards Resolving;

Gathering Additional Stories. Therefore, the seven-phases process of inquiry helps in providing

detailed data in building and conceptualizing concrete knowledge, as well as bridging the stories

collected as evidenced-based nursing practice. Researchers decided to explore more on the story

theory since all can corelate it easily and find it interesting. The following parts will probe the theory

more applied it in scenario. As we work on the premises of the theory, we tend to understand that the

meaning of its concept revealed as the first-hand experience that this theory helps us in our practice

better nursing discipline in our daily world.

Defining Attributes

Based upon what the context have mentioned, story theory offers a framework for

interaction between nurse and patient in multidimensional settings. It might expect to influence

the following defining element:

1. Person

2. Environment

3. Nursing Practice

The person here is referring to the nurse and patient. How they both deal the assumptions

to understand the process of change, as they interrelate with their complex world in a vast of

flowing connected dimensions. Open out with life personal stories and as individual interact the

environment and shaped by life experienced.

The environment is said to be a dwelling place of conversation. These are where

gathering of data and changes of ideas takes place. The integral part of the environment is the

culture they

immersed. Culture provides belief system on which an understanding of reality can be based. A

particular values are developed based on the beliefs of the culture they’ve practice, that influence

thinking, decision making, and action (Leininger, 1995).

Lastly, it is essential to know that we can’t develop better health outcome if the nurse

cannot identify the basic problem. Instead, the practitioner must be motivated to work with

collaboration. By encouraging listening to patient stories is also a therapy in its own right,

alongside with other

activities that enable self-expressions and healing. Moreover, it is the essential guiding element

of the nursing practice to allow wisdom of people living in health challenge.

Antecedent and Consequences

investigating the antecedent and consequences of the conceptualized model. Aforementioned the

nature of the concept, the antecedent must be chosen from the meta-paradigm of nursing. The

presentation or re-presentation of the story theory are persons, as individual has a main role of
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the theory. The characteristic of individual plays an impact on how to sequence guided story to

address a health challenged. In other way around, that the persons participation could render

therapeutic approach to enhance the setting of fostering betterment in a health challenge. This

means that the ultimate goal here is to established assistance or empower the patient to manage

their own health and wellbeing, which requires taking care of one’s social health and maintained

the need of personal connection.

The story will always be about a health challenge. Story telling as an approach for

gathering data sometimes may not be a comfortable method for some people. Especially in areas

of a sensitive health issues and patients having trust concerns, therefore data may not be elicited.

The consequence is well determined.

The practical utilization of the upper mentioned factors represents the cause and effect of

the implementation of the person as a concept in nursing practice.

Empirical Referents

Nursing is the study of human health and healing through caring (Smith,1994). Caring is

the path to healing (Liehr & Smith,2008).

As focused in the context, human health is being contemplated. To address the health

concerns, the essential function of the nurse is to interact with our client, using the story as the

guidelines for gathering data. By coming up to know a person “through a story”, in the context of

nurse-patient health-promoting process, we can easily identify what is the most important goals

to developed that the person is likely to embrace, which may result in a positive health outcome.

In the process of telling and hearing stories is one way of patient’s therapy, to help patient to

organize their thoughts, and it may also mend of what they feel. The individual frequently gains

fresh perspectives and a better grasp of who they are. (Arthur Frank 1997) refers stories as a way
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to repair the damage caused by illness so that one’s life path is reconstructed in the context of

illness. Communication and understanding are the vital tool for the success in attaining such

objectives. Therefore, it is up to the patient to decide whether or not to take part in the activity.

Model and Alternative Cases

story data using quantitative approach. One query of the study was: “What connection exists

between the language used in accounts of a change in lifestyle and cognitive performance in

older people receiving hemodialysis?” The stories about coping with the difficulty of a lifestyle

change were gathered using the story route technique. In this situation, the nurse is required to

adhere to the aforementioned theory’s criteria. Moreover, work collaboratively to create a healthy

environment to hasten patient’s recovery and to giving objectives in caring the patient. With

emphasis on giving a patient a thorough grasp of hemodialysis's function and sufficient dialysis

sessions, as well as enough nutrition, vascular access maintenance, hormone imbalance

correction, minimal hospitalization, and life extension with improved quality. However, they also

encourage the patient to live a healthy lifestyle and take whatever necessary precautions to avoid

any potential consequences. The patient then acknowledges that there are numerous areas in

which they can make improvements in order to improve their well-being, which serves as the

empirical referent.

Pennebaker and Stone (2003) refer word-use analysis as a tool for accessing a window

into personality. If one adopts this interpretation of word use, a relationship analysis may be able

to connect personality and health in a useful way. After all, any patient has the right to

participate, nor decline to take part of the treatment. Yet, they were entitled to practice their

rights. And in this case, it will become increasingly difficult for medical staff to provide

beneficial effects if one or more of the aforementioned elements are absent.

Conclusions
The story theory process is a straightforward method of obtaining data through dialogue,

whether oral, written, and coming up with a solution based on real-world scenarios and nursing

practice. To sum up, the story theory notion depicts a healthy environment where given emphasis

on taking all reasonable steps to ensure a patient's successful recovery to address health

concerns. The story theory was initially published in 1999 after years of collaborative work that

started in 1996. Significant progress was made and come a short way from starting point in

twelve years since the story first developed through the meaning of story sharing for health. The

theory’s creation and dissemination prompted additional thought and a description to use it in a

practice (Liehr &Smith 2000; Smith & Liehr 2005). A useful framework for story-gathering in

study and practice is provided by the story theory. Growing nursing knowledge and influencing

nursing practice are two goals that might naturally result from narrative processes that are

centered on the complex health dilemma, building tale plot and moving towards resolving.

Quantitative and qualitative analyses have been applied to story data is further refined using the

inquiry method (Liehr & Smith, 2011). Finally, the theory is highly helpful in addressing

complicated health concerns. The theory is also relevant to promote nursing practice scholarship

in both academic and clinical settings by presenting new perspectives on nursing practice and

research.
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