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Intimacy, caring, and an ethics of care.

Intimacy, caring, and an ethics of care I was pleased to read the letter from Mochan (2008) in the July 2008 issue of Nursing Philosophy regarding my 2007 article, ‘Beyond empathy: clinical intimacy in nursing practice’. She raises important questions regarding the possible contributions made by my model of clinical intimacy to a general theory of caring in nursing. Similarly, I read with great interest Betts’ (2008) letter in the October 2008 issue responding to Mochan’s letter and raising concerns about theories of caring being taught absent a grounding in the ethics of care spawned by Gilligan’s (1982) groundbreaking work. In the few paragraphs that follow I offer a brief response to both letters. Mochan raises concerns about reciprocity blurring boundaries in patient–practitioner encounters. As I stress in my article, however, it is complementary behaviours – not reciprocal ones – that are central to my model of clinical intimacy. Indeed, there may be occasions on which reciprocity constitutes a complementary behaviour, but it is by no means a required component in an intimate interaction. My example – perhaps poorly chosen – of the exchange between the psychiatric nurse and patient who attempted suicide is intended to show the effects of complementary behaviours in a way that de-emphasizes reciprocity. Indeed, as I write,