Clean, Pleasant, Governed: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Bathing Without a Battle

Bathing Without a Battle is a widely circulated video training resource in residential dementia care, but the assumptions it advances about bathing, refusal, and appropriate nursing practice have received limited critical attention. This paper analyzes how the text constructs resistance to assisted bathing and how it frames legitimate nursing responses to that resistance. A three-part Faircloughian critical discourse analysis is used, attending to social structures, processes of production and dissemination, and the textual features through which meaning is enacted. The bulk of the analysis focuses on genre, discourse, and style to examine how the video governs practice and moral reasoning. Findings indicate that the program positioned itself as an early form of clinical practice guideline by linking instructional conventions with the authority of academic research. It also illuminates the lexical choices used to portray cleanliness as a non-negotiable objective, while clients' refusals are positioned as problems (of technique, discomfort, or pathology) to overcome rather than expressions of agency. Finally, the paper demonstrates how the video's emphasis on pleasure operates as a stylistic and moral device that shapes nurses as responsible for producing care that is both hygienic and affectively acceptable. The paper concludes by considering the ethical implications of this framing for autonomy in dementia care and the normalization of persuasion when care outcomes are predetermined. Trial Registration: Clinical trial registration is not applicable, as this study did not involve a clinical trial.