are the processes of heuristic interpretation that
move the discourse of the structure to the discourse
of the theory.Artistic expressionis “cocreating an
artform incarnating the researcher’s transfiguring
moments with the researched. The artforms may be
paintings, drawings, literary works, metaphors,
music, and others” (Parse, 2003, p. 1). In the next
section, the core concepts, structural transposition,
and conceptual integration for this study are sum-
marized (see Table 14–2) and described in detail,
followed by the researcher’s artistic expression.
Buoyant Assuredness Amid Unsureness
The first core concept, buoyant assuredness amid
unsureness, captures the participants’ descriptions
offeeling confidentas an enriching and exhilarating
feeling of surety experienced together with the
unsettling tentativeness of wavering with the ambi-
guity in their lives. As they spoke about their expe-
riences, the participants described feeling confident
as, for example, “an upward spiral of believing I can
do just about anything”; “getting psyched up”; “a
euphoric feeling”; “being happy and very, very pos-
itive”; “energizing”; and “being on a natural high.”
Simultaneously, all of the participants also de-
scribed experiences of “not feeling confident.” They
talked, for instance, about feeling “intimidated,”
“insecure,” “scared,” “worried,” and “terrified.” For
example, one participant, who injured her spinal
cord in a car accident, shared, “There are times
where I feel completely safe and completely confi-
dent. It’s the moments when the injury totally goes
away. I do not feel injured, I do not look injured, I
do not think injured and it feels good, it provides
energy. I am happy and very positive.” The same
participant went on to say:
Sometimes I feel very unconfident. I am still lacking
confidence in my ability to return to work. I can’t
work hands on any more and I am afraid of the pain
of not being able to do the job that I love. A lot of
experiences with health care people have degraded
my confidence. When I was first trying to get off the
ventilator, I was terrified. They plugged the trach,
put a nasal cannula on me and said go to town. I re-
member anxiety over not being able to get enough
oxygen. I was alone and I couldn’t even yell for help.
The nasal cannula had come out of my nose and the
nurse came and shoved it back and said, ‘You’re fine,
stop messing around.’ That one experience scared me
so badly.Similarly, the notion of buoyant assuredness
amid unsureness emerged with other participants’
descriptions of their patterns of relating with oth-
ers. For instance, one participant shared:
Feeling confident is a euphoric feeling. I am not al-
ways confident. Many people don’t know what I have
accomplished and they are amazed by all that I do.
But, that kind of stuff can erode away your confidence
because it takes me getting into this situation to im-
press them, but I was flying before my accident. I was
working, I had a house, I was going to start a family.
Sometimes it can bleed your confidence away at times.
The core concept, buoyant assuredness amid
unsureness, captures participants’ descriptions of
feeling confident as an uplifting experience of being
certain, yet all-at-once uncertain about themselves
and about the people and projects in their lives. At
the structural transposition level, the ideas cap-
tured by buoyant assuredness amid unsureness
are conceptualized as elated certainty-uncertainty.
Elated certainty-uncertainty is conceptually inte-
grated with human becoming as originating.
Originating is related to the ways humans create
means of distinguishing and living their personal
uniqueness while simultaneously designing ways to
go along with and to be like others. As humans
originate ways of being the same yet unique, they
are both sure about the choices they make and un-
sure about what the outcomes will be (Parse, 1998).
In this study, the participants’ descriptions of their
experiences of feeling confident that led to buoyant
assuredness amid unsureness are an example of the
way people continuously experience doubt and un-
sureness, even when they describe being energized
and uplifted by a feeling of sureness about the peo-
ple, projects, and possibilities that they choose to
pursue. The descriptions that led to this core con-
cept connect the participants’ experiences of feeling
confident with their having faith or trusting that,
despite the continuous presence of unsureness,
they will be fine.
The descriptions given by the participants in
this study also demonstrate the ways others cocre-
ate persons’ experiences of certainty-uncertainty
with feeling confident. The descriptions that con-
tributed to the core concept of buoyant assured-
ness amid unsureness demonstrated the dimension
of uncertainty that is emphasized with some pat-
terns of relating with others. The core ideas about
feeling confident represented by the next core con-202 SECTION III Nursing Theory in Nursing Practice, Education, Research, and Administration