Donna Frost

Chapter 8 276 finding or creating a community of like-minded people to offer professional support during the journey. Finally, it is helpful to work in, or work towards creating and nurturing, a context in which professional artistry is valued. Suggestions have been made for the ways in which the insights, methods and principles of this research can be integrated into professional practice in health care or the education of health professionals, so that the development of professional artistry receives explicit attention in health care settings and in education for health care as well. The implications of these findings for future research into professional artistry or when using a collaborative or critical creativity approach have been identified. It has been argued here that inquiring collaboratively, creatively and critically into professional artistry in the way described in this thesis leads indeed to transformation of understandings and creates room to transform both practices and ways of being in the direction of professional artistry. Transformation, however, be it of perspective, understanding, doing or being, is complex, paradoxical and sometimes painful. It engenders internal struggle and brings us into contact with the hidden landscapes of our being and of our ideas about ourselves. It requires, therefore, compassion for self, perseverence, creativity and embodied learning. The CCCI methodology, in particular the CCCI lemniscate, enabled the creation of conditions in which we could safely embark on this journey and learn to support ourselves, each other and in some cases other people to expand the potential for becoming. The CCCI inquiry process, in other words, enabled the creation of a safe and sheltered space, supported working with the now and the not yet and with parts and wholes, supported commitment to the ideal and enabled transformative action to be taken. This meant that even before we were able to articulate these processes, before we were aware that these patterns of engagement described the nature of professional artistry, the CCCI methodology supported embodied experience of these ways of doing and being and, in time, the development of both a research praxis and the articulation of professional artistry in nursing practice. It supported us therefore in expanding our ways of becoming. I began this thesis by wondering which of the stories told about nursing are heard, which of the stories have influence. The stories of the nurses, nurse practitioners, patients, residents, colleagues, students and familymemberswho have contributed to this research have affected me profoundly. I have been moved and inspired. I have experienced first-hand that it is certainly possible to nurture those moments of practice which make us most proud. It is certainly possible to come to understand