sity” of “being focused on” and “making” their goals
happen. They described feeling confident as “hav-
ing drive,” “just going ahead,” “being willing to try
again,” and “standing up for what you believe in.”
For one participant, feeling confident was con-
nected with “taking charge, moving forward, and
focusing on buying a house, starting up a business,
[and] getting my life back into shape.” He recalled,
“I did it with an intensity that even today I find a
little bit hard to realize.” Another participant
shared:
Feeling confident is pushing myself to do the things
that I want to do. People think that I can afford this
house because I had my accident. No, it’s because I
worked hard when I was sick, when I had a huge sci-
atic nerve problem in my legs and I used to crawl up
ladders, dragging my leg up the ladder and that was
because I had a goal in mind. In order to live the life I
wanted to live, I had to work hard. You have just got
to keep on going.The core concept of persistently pursuing the
cherished is structurally transposed as pushing-
resisting with the treasuredand conceptually inte-
grated with human becoming as the theoretical
construct powering valuing. Powering valuing is
confirming-not confirming one’s value priorities
while continuously living the pushing-resisting
rhythm of affirming-not affirming being with non-
being (Parse, 1998). In this study, the descriptions
of feeling confident that led to the core concept of
persistently pursuing the cherished illuminated the
participants’ commitment to living in ways that
confirmed and achieved what was most important
to them. The notion of affirming being in spite of
the possibility of non-being surfaced in all partici-
pants’ descriptions of pushing and persisting with
their priorities—even though there were people
and circumstances that were not affirming and that
made the possibility of non-being explicit. In
affirming and moving with their value priorities,
the participants were simultaneously not affirming
the possibility of non-being, which for them meant
consequences such as not getting better, not accom-
plishing things, and not standing up for what they
wanted.
The implications of this study primarily relate to
what can happen when health professionals have an
enhanced understanding of human experience. For
example, the descriptions of feeling confident as
one dimension of the paradoxical rhythm, feeling
confident–feeling unsure, underscore the impor-
tance of health professionals being available to bear
witness to both dimensions of the rhythm should
persons want to share them. It also helps nurses and
others to understand that even though persons may
describe feeling confident about something in the
moment, the experience is dynamic and continu-
ously shifting. What someone is confident about
today may be a source of uncertainty tomorrow.
The way professionals are with people as they live
the shifting rhythm of feeling confident–feeling
unsure can be helpful, or harmful.Human Becoming Hermeneutic Method
The human becoming hermeneutic method (Cody,
1995c; Parse, 1998, 2001a) was developed in con-
gruence with the assumptions and principles of
Parse’s theory, drawing on works by Bernstein
(1983), Gadamer (1976, 1989), Heidegger (1962),
Langer (1967), and Ricoeur (1976). Gadamer’s
work in particular guided the explication of the
method. This method is intended to guide the in-
terpretation of texts and art forms in light of the
human becoming perspective, giving rise to new
understandings of human experiences as manifest
in the emergent meanings that are the findings of a
hermeneutic study. In Cody’s work in developing
the method, the hermeneutic processes ofdiscours-
ing, interpreting,and understandingwere explicated
within a human becoming perspective, informed
by important works by the authors previously men-
tioned. Parse (1998, 2001a) further refined the
processes and gave depth and clarity to their mean-
ing. The processes are:discoursing with penetrating
engaging,interpreting with quiescent beholding,and
understanding with inspiring envisaging. To date,
three studies (Cody, 1995c, 2001; Ortiz, 2003) using
this method have been published.Qualitative-Descriptive Preproject-
Process-Postproject Method
The qualitative-descriptive preproject-process-
postproject method is described in detail in Parse’s
(1998, 2001a) works. This method’s purpose is to
understand what happens when human becoming
is lived in the nurse-person/family/community
process. It has been used in multiple settings
(Bournes, 2002b).204 SECTION III Nursing Theory in Nursing Practice, Education, Research, and Administration