Some of the implications of this latter position are explored, including the requirement that all published research reports should include a reflexive research diary.

The aim of nursing research is generally agreed to be the generation of knowledge, and whilst this is a relevant aim in theory-based disciplines such as sociology, the primary concern of nursing is with practice. Using examples drawn mainly from the field of mental health, it will be argued in this paper that the application of generalizable, research-based knowledge to individual, unique, person-centred practice, the so-called 'research-based practice' advocated by the Department of Health, is one of the main causes of the theory-practice gap. It will be further suggested that nursing requires a paradigm of clinical research which focuses on the individual therapeutic encounter in order to complement the existing sociological paradigm of theoretical research which is best suited to the generation of generalizable knowledge and theory. The paper will conclude by suggesting that such a clinically based research paradigm must not only focus on the individual nurse-patient relationship, but that it must be carried out by the nurse herself. Clinical research, if it is to make a difference to practice, must therefore be practitioner-based research.

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Summary Despite the efforts of nursing theorists, educationalists and practitioners, the theory‐practice gap continues to defy resolution. This paper argues that only by reconsidering the relation between theory and practice can the gap be closed. Drawing upon ideas from teaching and other practice‐based disciplines, including nursing, the article suggests that the current model of viewing theory as informing and controlling practice should give way to a mutually enhancing model in which theory is derived from practice, and in turn influences future practice. This coming together of theory and practice is referred to as nursing praxis, and suggests that informal theory should be unique to each individual encounter with each patient. The clinical nurse is thus not only a practitioner, but a theorist and researcher, who responds to patients not according to some grand, inflexible theory, but by the process of reflection‐in‐action, drawing upon their expertise and a repertoire of past experiences and encounters.