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Health as Expanded Consciousness
In this final paper, I propose to meticulously evaluate Newman’s theory of Health as Expanding Consciousness (HEC). This process will be completed by utilizing the literature available on Newman’s theory, and the guide expressed in Parker and Smith’s (2015) chapter A guide for the study of nursing theories of practice. I will demonstrate how this theory has influenced my personal life, my life as a student, and my nursing practice, and I will also include examples from my life to further validate this. It is my conviction that using HEC enhances the nursing role from merely being a person who completes tasks in a timely manner, to one with a more self-regulating practice.
Understanding the HEC Theory
Dr. Newman
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As a nurse we must recognize that we “cannot isolate, manipulate, and control variables to understand the whole of a phenomenon” (Newman, 2015, p. 283). In my role as a nurse, it is imperative that I realize that all of the patient’s experiences, and patterns will determine how they respond to an illness. For example, if a patient who has relatively no medical history, is diagnosed with bowel cancer, his response will be quite different than someone who has a past history of cancer. The latter person will be equipped with insight into what to expect through his past involvements during the course of his illness or disease. The first patient will require further information, and time to understand the diagnosis. He will have many questions, and will require more support to fully comprehend what is happening in his environment and to himself. The focus of HEC theory in nursing practice is to develop the ability to identify patterns, and to become authentically connected to the patients. The nurse through, “pattern recognition, finds meaning, and accelerates the evolution of her consciousness” (Newman, 1997, p. 23). If your intent is to follow the HEC theory in your nursing practice, you need to reflect, and become purposely present for your patient. This process will increase your ability to enhance your consciousness and awareness, and the adeptness to focus on …show more content…
After learning Newman’s HEC theory I realized that I had been taught to focus on the disease and treatment during my earlier education and training. Although subconsciously I was already practicing the awareness that “simply having a disease does not make a person unhealthy” (Newman, 2015, p. 280). As previously mentioned, my son has Cerebral Palsy, Lennox Gastaut Seizure Disorder, Asthma, and is Deafblind but I would not identify him as unhealthy. Barring an acute flare up or episode of his diseases, his health is excellent. This realization has proven to me and to our family that he is obtaining quality of life through our extensive planning of his days and providing good care for him. Researching and learning about HEC theory has enlightened me as a mother, student and nurse. As a mother, I am more aware and concentrate on expanding my consciousness. I am learning to visualize the person-environment interaction with my son. As a nurse I am expanding my knowledge in this theory, and opening myself up to the process. Throughout each assessment, I prepare myself through self-reflection to ensure that I am present for my patient. My awareness and enhancement of consciousness allows me to recognize the patterns of a patient’s life. It has enriched my nursing practice and given my work and home life a sharper, more distinct focus. I am more aware of the patterns, and can now sense when my patient
Although many stipulations and expectations of the nursing profession are predetermined through regulatory authorities and organizations, there is a deeper meaning to this profession and the care that it provides. For decades, nursing theorists have had an impact on the care that this profession delivers; however, it is also important for every practicing nurse to explore themselves and their personal thoughts and feelings on the profession they have chosen. As a nurse, I have been able to search myself and determine what nursing means to me and apply it in my daily interactions with my coworkers, patients, families, and the community in which I serve. The nursing metaparadigm serves as a framework on discovering and exploring these thoughts and values as it introduces four concepts: nursing, health, person, and environment. Nursing care is a delicate and integral balance of various components within these concepts. Nurses provide care to others during some of the most difficult times of life. Because of this, it is imperative to understand the meaning and application of these concepts and be able to apply that knowledge to the care we provide as a profession. As a nurse, it is important to realize that the care we provide is an extension of what we learn from textbooks; nursing care encompasses an understanding and acceptance of others as well as a continual willingness to help and improve society.
It helps to define how a nurse’s interactions with patients establish trust and a working relationship between the nurse and the patient. Deane & Fain (2015) studied Peplau’s Theory as a way to help nursing students with their relationships with older adults. With the increase of geriatric patients that will occur over the next few years, Deane & Fain (2015) felt that young nurses coming out of school my have some attitudes of ageism. Therefore, they wanted to determine if Peplau’s Theory would help these new graduates with their nurse-patient relationships. They concluded that Peplau’s Theory would be beneficial in teaching holistic care and communication to nurses. “Through the fostering of holistic practice, nurses will have an increased ability to process the feelings, thoughts, and emotions they may have toward their patients” (Deane & Fain, 2015).
Every person’s needs must be recognized, respected, and filled if he or she must attain wholeness. The environment must attuned to that wholeness for healing to occur. Healing must be total or holistic if health must be restored or maintained. And a nurse-patient relationship is the very foundation of nursing (Conway et al 2011; Johnson, 2011). The Theory recognizes a person’s needs above all. It sets up the conducive environment to healing. It addresses and works on the restoration and maintenance of total health rather than only specific parts or aspect of the patient’s body or personality. And these are possible only through a positive healing relationship between the patient and the nurse (Conway et al, Johnson).
When I became a nurse, in my heart, I knew that I was a caring person; however, I did not have a caring theory driving my practice. After studying Watson’s Human Caring Science Theory, the theory is consistent with my values, which emphasizes a holistic approach with mind, body, and spirit through a caring nurse patient relationship in an environment that promotes healing, comfort, and dignity. Human Caring Science gives the privilege of viewing human life with wonder, respect, and appreciates small and large miracles, which allows the inner world of the patient and nurse to come together in a unique human relationship, in the here and now moment (Watson, 2012, p. 24).
Grace, P. J., & Perry, D. J. (2013). Philosophical inquiry and the goals of nursing. Advances in Nursing Science, 36(2), 64-79. doi:10.1097/ANS.0b013e3182901921
Nursing is the core of care. The essential is not communication via words or language, but care that is imparted by sincere interest is interdenominational and transcends culture, language, and treatments. Relational consciousness is a significant component of a compassionate nursing practice. Doane, & Varcoe, (2015) state that relational awareness encompasses recognition that individuals are situated and constituted through cultural, interpersonal, social, political and emotional processes. Operating from the center of which we are, with insight and awareness is essential to phenomenological nursing practice. I will be exploring my personal values and beliefs
This interactive grand theory is grounded in humanist philosophy, which expresses the belief that humans are unitary beings and energy fields in constant interaction with the universal energy field. This model guides the nurse who is interested in “physiologic” and “psychological” adoptions (McEwen & Wills, 2014, p. 177). This model views the nurse as holistic adaptive system constantly interacting with different stimuli. And also explains how different sets of interrelated systems maintain a balance between various stimuli to promote individual and environmental transformation (Alkrisat & Dee, 2014). This model creates a framework to provide care for individuals in health and “in acute, chronic, or terminal illness” (Shah, Abdullah, & Khan, 2015, p. 1834). It focuses on improving basic life processes of individuals, families, groups of people; nurses see communities as holistic adaptive systems. It consists of three basic assumptions: philosophical, scientific, and cultural. And it also contains many defined concepts about the environment, health, person, goal of nursing, adaptation, focal, contextual, and residual stimuli, cognator and regulator subsystem, and stabilizer and innovator control processes (McEwen & Wills, 2014, p.
Participant 4 stated, “I think just basically being there for the family as well…I think even just a cup of tea can go a long way with any family (McCallum & McConigley, 2013). Another theory that intertwines with Watson’s is Barbara Dossey’s Theory of Integral Nursing. Dossey articulates, “Healing is not predictable, it is not synonymous with curing but the potential for healing is always present even until one’s last breath,” (Parker and Smith, 2015, p. 212). Dossey believes that integral nursing is a comprehensive way to organize different situations in fours perspectives (nurse, health, person and environment) of reality with the nurse as an instrument in the healing process by bringing his or her whole self into a relationship with another whole self. In the HDU, the RN’s interacted with each patient while providing high quality care to create a healing environment for the patient and family even when their prognosis was otherwise. Patient 3 specified that “We still have to provide care...and make the family feel that they are comfortable and looked after” (McCallum & McConigley, 2013). These theories ultimately show the importance of a nurse through the aspects of caring to create and maintain a healing environment that is not only beneficial to the patient but to their loved ones as
Throughout this philosophy paper, I have explored what nursing is based on my personal values and beliefs as it relates to the body of work in nursing. I value the importance of holistic nursing and the care of patients being individualized for them and their family. Also, effectively collaborating among health care professionals to ensure quality care for patients. Additionally, the importance of health promotion as one of the main roles of nurses is being a teacher, since promoting health prevents illness and increases the level of health in clients. These principles will serve as a guide for my personal standards of nursing practice.
My journey to nursing began with my personal healthcare experience, and has continued to evolve since entering the nursing program at State University. My personal philosophy of nursing is related my life experience and my personal philosophy of life. Using reflection-on-action, I have begun to understand the influences that have lead me to nursing. I discovered client and family centered care to be an important quality when I look at the influential nurses in my life. To develop a positive therapeutic nurse-client relationship, nurses must integrate all 5 dimensions of the therapeutic nurse-client relationship into their practice (CNO, 2006). When it comes to providing client-centered care, the dimensions of trust, empathy and respect are particularly important (CNO, 2006). Illness can be a traumatic experience for patients and their families, and it is important to be empathetic to the patient’s needs, while still trusting the patient to be an expert in their illness and care.
Many persons go into the healthcare ground because they want to work with people. For these nurses, it is the nurse-patient relationship that is one of the most significant things. By understanding the nurse-patient relationship, nurses can be better furnished to work with their patients and, eventually, deliver superior care for them. Hildegard Peplau's model of nursing emphases on that nurse-patient relationship and recognizes the diverse roles nurses take on when working with patients.
The human becoming theory posits quality of life from each person's own perspective as the goal of nursing practice. It is a human science theory that views individuals as an open, unitary and free-willed beings that co-creates their health and interact with their environments. The human becoming theory views nursing as a basic science with a unique knowledge base. Parse defined unitary as the indivisible, unpredictable and ever-changing part of human that makes choices while living a paradoxical pattern of becoming in mutual process with the universe (Parse, 2004). Health is living one’s own chosen values; it is the quality of life experienced and described by the person and it cannot be given, guarded, manipulated, judged or diagnosed. It is a process of becoming that is unfolding and cannot be prescribed or described by societal norms but by the individual living t...
Healthcare professionals must remember that although their following a proven set of guidelines, it is important to treat each patient as an individual as well. The nursing theorists have taken individuality in care into account and mentioned the importance of structuring nursing based on each individual’s needs, (Wadensten and Carlsson, 2003). Diiferent theorists have come up with different points on view on the practice of nursing. For example, Martha Rogers and Betty Neuman are both theorists that developed different theories to describe human-environment interaction. Martha Rogers believed in using three principles; reasonancy, helicy, and integrality to predict human behavior influencing healing. Reasonancy, which relates to wave patterns; helicy, which is concerned with non-repeating rhythmicities; and integrality, which is the continuous mutual human field and environmental field process (Chapman, 1987). Rogers also believed that a patient environment has a direct effect on the healing process. Betty Neuman believed in a holistic view and that we must treat patients as a whole. Neuman also describe nursing interventions as three principles primary, secondary and tertiary preventions. Primary referring to the protection and strengthening of the line of defense, secondary prevention refers to increased resistance factors and reduction in reaction. Tertiary prevention refers to the patients
Applying Newman’s Theory of Health as Expanding Consciousness to the nursing paradigm demonstrates her concepts of health and illness as part of a greater whole and each person’s unique experience as a major factor in that person’s health and illness. In relating her theory to the nursing paradigm, it is important to understand that Newman believes “that we cannot isolate, manipulate, and control variables in order to understand the whole of a phenomenon” (Harris, 2009, p. 220). Her theory emphasizes the whole of the experience of the person who is the patient.
The purpose of this paper is to define my professional nursing philosophy. I will utilize the nursing metaparadigm as a framework for integrating the concepts of person, environment, health, and nursing into my nursing practice. Secondly, I will discuss Jean Watson’s theory of human care and how this has personally impacted my profession as a nurse and guided my nursing philosophy.