Creative-led research: Nursing portraits of resilience

In recent years we have seen an explosion of resilience research, but relatively few of these include the personal narratives of nurses thriving in their work. This paper will explore the creative-based qualitative methodology known as ‘Portraiture’, created by Sarah Lawrence-Lightfoot (1983), where written portraits rather than painted canvasses are presented for viewing. This discussion considers why this approach is a vibrant and powerful way to communicate messages about people’s experiences: in this case, nurses’ experiences of resilience in contemporary healthcare settings