Jean Watson's Theory of Human Caring (PDF)

Jean Watson’s Theory of Human Caring“Philosophy and Theory of Transpersonal Caring” or “Caring Science.” (June 10, 1940 – present ) Nemia T. Alimbuyugin, PhD,MAN,RN Professor - TFN  Jean Watson’s Life Story : 1961 -Attended high school in West Virginia 1964...

Jean Watson’s Theory of Human Caring“Philosophy and Theory of Transpersonal Caring” or “Caring Science.” (June 10, 1940 – present ) Nemia T. Alimbuyugin, PhD,MAN,RN Professor - TFN  Jean Watson’s Life Story : 1961 -Attended high school in West Virginia 1964 - earned a baccalaureate degree in nursing at the Lewis Gale School of Nursing in Roanoke, Virginia.. 1966 - degree in psychiatric–mental health nursing at the Health Sciences campus. 1973 - PhD educational psychology & counseling at Boulder campus, joined the School of Nursing faculty, University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver( faculty & administrative positions) 1981-1982 -sabbatical studies in New Zealand, Australia, India, Thailand, & Taiwan 2005 - sabbatical studies for a walking pilgrimage in the Spanish El Camino.  Jean Watson’s Theory of Care : provides a systematic way of looking at professional practice, describes what nursing is, guides what nurses do, and helps generate knowledge to direct the future of nursing. Emphasizes the reason why nurses were attracted to the profession, nurses are drawn to the human side of nursing and nursing and believe in the positive effect of human caring on caring on health outcomes “ Any profession that loses its values becomes heartless; any profession that becomes heartless becomes soulless. Any profession that becomes heartless and soulless, becomes Worthless”. Theoretical assertions : Nursing The caring-healing paradigm is located within a cosmology that is both metaphysical and transcendent with the co-evolving human in the universe. To be open to possibility and to put away assumptions of self and others, to learn again, and to “see” using all of one’s senses. provides care to various patients. Each carative factor and the clinical caritas processes describe the caring process of how a patient attains or maintains health or dies a peaceful death. increased focus on the human care process and the transpersonal aspects of caring-healing in a Transpersonal Caring Relationship, make explicit that humans cannot be treated as objects and that humans cannot be separated from self, other, nature, and the larger universe.  Nursing The word nurse is both noun and verb, consists of “knowledge, thought, values, philosophy, commitment, and action, with some degree of passion”. Interested in understanding health, illness, and the human experience; promoting and restoring health; and preventing illness. Nurses to go beyond procedures, tasks, and techniques used in practice settings, coined as the trim of nursing, in contrast to the core of nursing, meaning those aspects of the nurse-patient relationship resulting in a therapeutic outcome that are included in the transpersonal caring process.  Watson's Caring Science Caring Science as Sacred Science (2005), describes her personal journey to enhance understanding about caring science, spiritual practice, the concept and practice of care, and caring-healing work, “provoking experiences and the sacredness of nursing by emphasizing deep inner reflection and personal growth, communication skills, use of self-transpersonal growth, and attention to both caring science and healing through forgiveness, gratitude, and surrender ’ received the American Journal of Nursing 2005 Book of the Year Award described as an evolving philosophical-ethica l — epistemic field of study, that is grounded in the discipline of nursing and informed by related fields. The notion of Caring Science was posted in her first book: Nursing the Philosophy and Science of Caring (1979) Boston: Little Brown. Further explication evolved from the Theory offers a meaningful philosophical foundation to nursing science, beyond conventional Western science. acknowledges a relational ontology versus a separatist ontology.  Watson's Caring Science philosophy, blueprint, ethic, paradigm, worldview, treatise, conceptual model, framework,& theory. discovery and honoring of all the vicissitudes of humanity; honoring metaphysical phenomena such as Spirit, Sacred, Love, Consciousness, and Caring (Caritas). nursing’s phenomena within the Unitary Transformative paradigmatic thinking, accommodating phenomena such as non-local consciousness, transpersonal, transcendence, pattern, intentionality, sacred, & energy.  Theoretical sources To develop her theory, defines theory as “an imaginative grouping of knowledge, ideas, and experience that are represented symbolically and seek to illuminate a given phenomenon”. (Human Science) is a theory because it helps me ‘to see’ more broadly (clearly)” Phenomenological, existential, and spiritual orientation from the sciences and humanities as well as philosophical and intellectual guidance from feminist theory, metaphysics, phenomenology, quantum physics, wisdom traditions, perennial philosophy, and Buddhism.  She cites background for her theory nursing philosophies and theorists, including Nightingale, Henderson, Leininger, Peplau, Rogers, and Newman, and also the work of Gadow, a nursing philosopher and health care ethicist. She connects Nightingale’s sense of deep commitment and calling to an ethic of human service. Emphasis on the interpersonal and transpersonal qualities of congruence, empathy, and warmth to the views of Carl Rogers and more recent writers of transpersonal psychology.  Her main concepts include the 10 carative factors and transpersonal healing and transpersonal caring relationship, caring moment, caring occasion, caring healing modalities, caring consciousness, caring consciousness energy, and phenomenal file/unitary consciousness. She expanded the carative factors to a closely related concept, caritas, a Latin word that means “to cherish, to appreciate, to give special attention, if not loving attention.” As carative factors evolved within an expanding perspective, and as her ideas and values evolved, she offered a translation of the original carative factors into clinical caritas processes that suggested open ways in which they could be considered.  Use of empirical evidence incorporates empiricism but emphasizes approaches that begin with nursing phenomena rather than with the natural sciences. For example, she has used human science, empirical phenomenology, and transcendent phenomenology in her work. She has investigated metaphor and poetry to communicate, convey, and elucidate human caring and healing. In her inquiry and writing, she increasingly incorporated her conviction that a sacred relationship exists between humankind and the universe.  Major assumptions calls for joining of science with humanities so that nurses have a strong liberal arts background and understand other cultures as a requisite for using Caring Science & a mind-body-spiritual framework. study of the humanities expands the mind & enhances thinking skills and personal growth. Moral commitment, intentionality, & caritas consciousness by the nurse protect, enhance, & potentiate human dignity, wholeness, & healing, thereby allowing a person to create or co-create his or her own meaning for existence.  Major assumptions The conscious will of the nurse affirms the subjective & spiritual significance of the patient while seeking to sustain caring during threat & despair—biological, institutional, or otherwise.I-Thou Relationship rather than an I-It Relationship. The nurse seeks to recognize, accurately detect, & connect with the inner condition of spirit of another through genuine presence & by being centered in the caring moment; actions, words, behaviors, cognition, body language, feelings, intuition, thoughts, senses,& the energy field, The nurse’s ability to connect with another at this transpersonal spirit-to-spirit level is translated via movements, gestures, facial expressions, procedures, information, touch, sound, verbal expressions, and other scientific, technical, aesthetic, & human means of communication, into nursing human art/acts or intentional caring-healing modalities.  Major assumptions The caring-healing modalities within the context of transpersonal caring/caritas consciousness potentiate harmony, wholeness, and unity of being by releasing some of the disharmony, that is, the blocked energy that interferes with natural healing processes; thus, the nurse helps another through this process to access the healer within, in the fullest sense of Nightingale’s view of nursing. Ongoing personal & professional development & spiritual growth, as well as personal spiritual practice, assist the nurse in entering into this deeper level of professional healing practice, allowing for awakening to a transpersonal condition of the world & fuller actualization of the “ontological competencies” necessary at this level of advanced practice of nursing.  Major assumptions The nurse’s own life history, previous experiences, opportunities for focused study, having lived through or experienced various human conditions, and having imagined others’ feelings in various circumstances are valuable teachers for this work; to some degree, the nurse can gain the knowledge and consciousness needed through work with other cultures and study of the humanities (e.g., art; drama; literature; personal story; or narratives of illness or journeys), along with exploration of one’s own values, deep beliefs, and relationship with self, others, and one’s world. Other facilitators are personal growth experiences such as psychotherapy, transpersonal psychology, meditation, bioenergetics work, and other models for spiritual awakening. Continuous growth for developing and maturing within a transpersonal caring model is ongoing. The notion of health professionals as wounded healers is acknowledged as part of the necessary growth and compassion called forth within this theory/philosophy.  Personhood (human being) uses interchangeably the terms human being, person, life, personhood, and self. the person as “a unity of mind/body/spirit/nature” and she says that “personhood is tied to notions that one’s soul possess a body that is not confined by objective time and space ” states, “I make the point to use mind, body, soul or unity within an evolving emergent world view-connectedness of all, sometimes referred to as Unitary Transformative Paradigm-Holographic thinking. It is often considered dualistic because I use the three words ‘mind, body, soul.’ I do it intentionally to connote and make explicit spirit/metaphysical—which is silent in other models”.  Health “unity and harmony within the mind, body, and soul” associated with the “degree of congruence between the self as perceived and the self as experienced” stated further, “illness is not necessarily disease ; [instead it is a] subjective turmoil or disharmony within a person’s inner self or soul at some level of disharmony within the spheres of the person, for example, in the mind, body, and soul, either consciously or unconsciously ”. “While illness can lead to disease, illness and health are : a. Phenomenon that is not necessarily viewed on a continuum. b. Disease processes can also result from genetic, constitutional vulnerabilities and manifest themselves when disharmony is present. c. Disease in turn creates more disharmony”. Environment as“attending to supportive, protective, and or corrective mental, physical, societal, and spiritual environments”. In later work, she has a much broader view of environment: “the caring science is not only for sustaining humanity, but also for sustaining the planet …. Belonging is to an infinite universal spirit world of nature and all living things; it is the primordial link of humanity and life itself, across time and space, boundaries and nationalities”. “healing spaces can be used to help others transcend illness, pain, and suffering,” emphasizing the environment and person connection: “when the nurse enters the patient’s room, a magnetic field of expectation is created”.  THEORY FOUNDATIONAL SUPPORT Rogers, Erikson, and Maslow, she incorporate in nursing educationholistic knowledge from many disciplines integrating the humanities, arts, and sciences and that the increasingly complex health care systems and patient needs require nurses to have a broad, liberal education. incorporated dimensions of a postmodern paradigm shift throughout her theory of transpersonal caring. Her theoretical underpinnings have been associated with concepts such as steady-state maintenance, adaptation, linear interaction, and problem-based nursing practice. The postmodern approach moves beyond this point; the redefining of such a nursing paradigm leads to a more holistic, humanistic, open system, wherein harmony, interpretation, and self-transcendence emerge reflecting a epistemological shift.  Generality Watson’s theory is best understood as a m oral and philosophica l basis for nursing. The scope of the framework encompasses broad aspects of health-illness phenomena. In addition, the theory addresses aspects of health promotion, preventing illness and exper ienc ing peaceful d eath, thereby increasing its generality. The carative factors provide guidelines for nurse-patient interactions, an important aspect of patient care. The theory does not furnish explicit direction about what to do to achieve authentic caring-healing relationships. Nurses who want concrete guidelines may not feel secure when trying to use this theory alone. Some have suggested that it takes too much time to incorporate the caritas into practice, and some note that Watson’s personal growth emphasis is a quality “that while appealing to some may not appeal to others” ( Drummond, 2005, p. 218).  Empirical precision Watson describes her theory as descriptive; she acknowledges the evolving nature of the theory and welcomes input from others Although the theory does not lend itself easily to research conducted through traditional scientific methods, recent qualitative nursing approaches are appropriate. Recent work on measurement reviews a broad array of international studies and provides research guidelines, design recommendations, and instruments for caring research.  Watson’s Theory & the Implications for Nursing Education The workplace environment that nurses face can be frustrating and morally destroying as they face disrespect, anger, frustration and apathy from various areas in the healthcare workplace. To counter this experience, cultivating caring in nursing practice seems to be a pre-requisite for basic peace of mind for the nurse practitioner. This can be cultivated if the ability to cultivate caring is part of the curriculum in nursing education, observe that when practice is guided by “values and beliefs” nurses use these values and beliefs as a lens to “view their practice … interact … and create an environment for nursing care to be delivered”. (Dyess, Boykin, & Rigg, 2010,), CONCLUSION : Transpersonal Roots: Jean Watson’s theory isn’t just about technical skills; it’s a symphony of compassion, connection, and healing. Transpersonal psychology emphasizes deep connectedness, shared humanity, and spiritual dimensions beyond the ego. It’s about relationships, meaning, and the interconnectedness of all beings. Watson’s theory embraces this transpersonal perspective. It’s not just about physical care; it’s about creating a sacred space where healing can occur. Thank you…