Fighting back: promoting emancipatory nursing actions

Poverty, education, and social problems are inextricably linked to health concerns and cannot be addressed in isolation from each other. Nurses are being challenged to care for clients who are socially, politically, and economically disadvantaged. The model of emancipatory nursing actions is derived from the work of Freire, Habermas, and Katz and presented as a practice model in guiding nurses to begin choosing actions that seek to help people fight back from the depths of their despair, rather than helping people cope and adapt to their oppression. Emancipatory interventions are provided to help nurses launch a new direction toward freeing their clients, rather than herding them through an uncaring and disjointed health and social service system.