Professional Presence and Mindfulness in Nursing Practice
This paper examines the concept of professional presence in nursing, analyzing how various models of health and healing — including the physical body, body-mind-spirit, and bio-psycho-social models — shape a nurse's demeanor, communications style, and influence on patient care. The paper incorporates a personal reflection on INFP personality type results from the Jung personality assessment, exploring how introverted and intuitive tendencies affect professional practice and team communication. It then applies mindfulness as an evidence-based strategy for achieving whole-person goals related to physical health and social-emotional intelligence, ultimately connecting these elements to optimal healing environments and best practices in culturally competent, holistic patient care.
- Introduction to Professional Presence in Nursing: Defines professional presence and its healthcare significance
- Models of Health and Healing: Compares body, biopsychosocial, and holistic health models
- Influence on Nursing Practice and Personality: How models and personality shape nursing behavior
- Mindfulness Practice and Whole Person Goals: Mindfulness as a tool for professional and personal growth
- Achieving Goals and Healing Environments: Goal achievement strategies and optimal care settings
- Best Practices and Professional Presence Promotion: Evidence-based practices for sustaining professional presence
- Conclusion: Synthesis of presence, mindfulness, and holistic care
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What makes this paper effective
- Integrates theoretical frameworks (models of health and healing) with personal self-reflection (Jung personality assessment), demonstrating applied critical thinking in nursing education.
- Uses evidence-based citations throughout to support practical claims about mindfulness, professional presence, and patient outcomes, lending academic credibility to personal observations.
- Maintains a consistent through-line from abstract healthcare models to concrete, individualized goals, making the argument both conceptually grounded and practically actionable.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper effectively employs first-person reflective writing within an academic framework — a technique common in nursing education. By anchoring personal experience (personality type, career preferences, whole-person goals) to peer-reviewed literature, the author demonstrates how self-awareness can be scholarly validated rather than simply asserted, which is a hallmark of reflective practice in health professions education.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a conceptual overview of professional presence before surveying models of health and healing and their impact on nursing comportment. It transitions into personal reflection through the Jung personality assessment, then applies mindfulness as a bridge between personal development and professional practice. The final sections connect whole-person goals and healing environments to institutional best practices, closing with a synthesis in the conclusion.
Introduction to Professional Presence in Nursing
A nurse's overall comportment and communication style, collectively referred to as professional presence, has become increasingly central to core competencies in healthcare. Professional presence impacts the way an individual nurse — and even an entire institution — is perceived by patients and the community. Nurse leaders need to focus more on human resources and professional development practices that stimulate professional presence and related competencies in what is colloquially known as bedside manner. Research is increasingly revealing the direct correlation between patient satisfaction and the minute details of a nurse's presence, including manner of dress (Ketchem, 2016). Each model of health and healing, including the physical body model, the body-mind model, the body-mind-spirit model, the bio-psycho-social model, the Eastern model, and the Western model, all inform models of professional comportment, demeanor, and presence. Furthermore, professional presence impacts the extent of a nurse's influence on nursing practice, patient care, institutional policy, organizational culture, and even public policy in healthcare.
Models of Health and Healing
Each model of health and healing offers different options and opinions on ideal professional presence and modes of nursing influence. The body-mind-spirit model presents a holistic vision of healthcare, impacting approaches to patient care in multiple healthcare settings, including psychiatric care (Rentala, Fong, Nattala, et al., 2015). Within a body-mind-spirit model, the nurse cultivates a professional presence in accordance with the philosophical principles of holistic care. Cultural competencies remain critical to the body-mind-spirit model, as well as to the bio-psycho-social model of healthcare.
The bio-psycho-social model is akin to the body-mind-spirit model, taking into account cultural and sociological factors impacting healthcare, attitudes towards healthcare and wellness, and beliefs about healing. By contrast, the physical body model of healthcare promotes a more singular vision of the role of the nurse, which in turn impacts professional presence and demeanor. The physical body model may not entirely discount the spiritual or cultural dimensions of healing, but it does pre-empt those issues in favor of allopathic medical interventions.
Models of health and healing impact beliefs and worldviews, including those that inform what it means to be human. Whereas the physical body model sets existential and eschatological concerns aside from the healthcare equation — while still respecting patient autonomy, individuality, and cross-cultural views on healing — the bio-psycho-social model does far more to incorporate spiritual values and viewpoints into models of what it means to be human.
The different models of healthcare also impact professional presence. Nurse leaders ascribing to the physical body model will ensure that their nursing staff segregate issues related to spirituality from medical care, whereas those promoting the body-mind-spirit or bio-psycho-social model might encourage nursing staff to allow spirituality to inform healthcare (O'Brien, 2018). In either case, professional presence encompasses all aspects of interpersonal communication and organizational culture under one cohesive rubric of healthcare. The nurse leverages emotional intelligence and professional competencies in order to promote high quality of care and positive patient outcomes.
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