To meet the aim of synthesising research on nurses' experiences of promoting personal recovery within psychiatric inpatient care, meta ethnography according to Noblit and Hare has been chosen as the method, which is a qualitative review of scientific literature that results in a synthesis. The focus is on interpretation and is expressed to be able to reduce a story, but at the same time keep what is unique using metaphors. Nine articles formed the basis of the synthesis. The analysis resulted in two levels of synthesis. The first level involved the translation of metaphors into one another, which proceeded in two directions, described as two principal headings. The second level produced five overarching metaphors. The first principal heading is that ‘erected walls in psychiatric inpatient care impedes personal recovery.’ It encompasses the overarching metaphors ‘cultivating in exhausted soil’ and ‘nurses are gatekeeping watchdogs’. The second principal heading is ‘torn-down walls in psychiatric inpatient care enable personal recovery’. It encompasses the overarching metaphors ‘disarming and de-escalating’, ‘facing suffering together reveals treasures’ and ‘elevating the competent partner promotes recovery’. Conclusively, if the nurse is to be able to promote personal recovery in psychiatric inpatient care, bridges of cooperation and consensus need to be built to other professions in care. Otherwise, the obstacles to promoting personal recovery will be far too hard to overcome.