Of human bonding: the context of nursing as caring.

Nursing's claim on caring as its professional hallmark requires articulation of the ways in which nursing and caring are uniquely integral. Interpreting nursing within a context of human bonding clarifies the contradiction between nursing's legitimate status as a professional service and its chosen identity of caring. Instrumental friendship, derived from the framework of human bonding, is proposed as a metaphor to connect the theory and practice worlds of nursing as caring.