Legitimizing: A Meaningful but Underappreciated and Underutilized Family Systems Nursing Intervention

Abstract

Legitimizing is a Family Systems Nursing (FSN) intervention that is more than active listening and validating to comfort individuals and families who experience suffering. Based on a postmodern paradigm, this intervention consists of acknowledging that a person’s ideas/experience make sense, given their context or circumstances. This concept is often mentioned when discussing the theoretical components of FSN, but little has been written about how to apply it in clinical practice. In therapeutic conversations, once family members’ ideas/experience have been “legitimized” by the nurse and by other family members, the greater the chances are of working together to find solutions to their problem. The purpose of this article is to provide an embellished description, theoretical background, and clinical examples of this underappreciated and underutilized FSN intervention.