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Abstract
Seventeen Norwegian and two Danish registered nurses specialized in psychiatric nursing narrated their experiences in caring for suicidal psychiatric inpatients. The interview texts were transcribed and interpreted using a phenomenologic-hermeneutic method, inspired by the philosophy of Ricoeur. Two main themes with subthemes were found Distance, which included compassion without emotional identification, mistrusting the patient, being responsible for the patient's actions, feelings of guilt, rejecting the patient, being rejected by the patient, and focus on the nurse, and Closeness, which included compassion with emotional identification, trusting the patient through contact, responsibility for the patient making his or her own agenda, being rejected by the patient, temporarily, listening to the patient, and focus on the patient. These findings were interpreted in relation to the ethical demand made on the nurses in their interaction with suicidal patients.