Jean Watsons Theory of Human Caring - Assignment Example

Jean Watson’s Theory of Human Caring Insert Jean Watsons Theory of Caring Introduction Dr. Jane Watson is an extraordinary professor of nursing at the University of Colorado. She believes that nursing can be a changing process through which both nurses and patients can be transformed. Her nursing practice theory well known as “Theory of Human Care,” states the basic principles of nursing and joins scientific and humanistic approaches to patient care. She clearly implies that caring is a nursing personality that when it is fully practiced, the world of a patient can become acutely bright, secure and rich. She evidently highlights six key actions that assist nurses fully expand and attend to human care (Cheng, 2006). The ultimate aim of this context is to examine Jean Watson’s theory of caring and its implications for both patients and nurses. This paper begins by outlining the overview of the theory before looking at how she brought out the idea of caring moment and how it can apply to daily lives of people (Potter & Perry, 1999). Overview of Watson’s Theory of Caring Watson’s theory of human caring also called theory of transpersonal caring or the caring model was established in 1979. The theory has undergone evolution for several years, but its root principal remains outstanding. The theory stresses on the concept of humanistic issue of nursing in conjunction to scientific knowledge. She modeled the theory in a way that it clearly brings out the implication and focus to nursing as a different health line of work. She believed that caring is a backing and support of the identity of nurses (Delaune, 2002). She added on that the identity of medicine is that of caring, since nurses deal with patients and medicines; the same should portray their identity. Florence Nightingale who stated that, “It is the surgeon who saves the life of an individual and it is the nurse who helps the life of this person,” heavily supported Watson’s implication (Reed, 2006). The theory of human caring implies that the role of nurses is to develop a caring association with patients through treating them as holistic being, which means, body, mind and spirit. The nurses are also supposed to express categorical acceptance and care for patients with a positive concern. They are also supposed to foster health through wisdom and involvement. Watson defined caring moment as the uninterrupted time that a nurse spends with a patient where they can share a story, advice, a joke, laugh together and at least make the patient feel healed. It is the session where the nurse and the patient make contact through nurse entering the patient’s room and making him or her have a feeling of anticipation. Watson thought that through the attitude of the nurse and competence, the world of the patient can become brighter or dowdy, larger or smaller and rich or dull (Potter & Perry, 1999). The patient’s world can also be secure or threatening depending on how the nurse treats him or her. There is no doubt that these moments are particularly crucial for both the sick person and the nurse because it connects them together. Application of Caring Moment The concept of caring science involves a humanitarian, the orientation of human science to the process of human caring, experiences and phenomena. Caring science encompass humanities, arts and science (Evelyn & Melanie, 2002). The perspective of a caring science is rooted in a relative ontology of being-in-association and the world’s observation of association and connectedness of all. Transpersonal caring, on the other hand, recognizes the essence of togetherness of life and associations that reposition in concentric circles of caring from one person to another, to the community, to the globe, to planet earth and eventually to the universe (Taylor & Lillis, 2001). The examinations of caring science cuddles inquests that subjective, reflective and translate as well as one-sided empirical. The caring science entails philosophical, ontology, ethical, studies and history quest. Moreover, caring science also encompasses numerous epistemological attitudes towards investigation, which involves clinical and experiential activities. Nevertheless, it is free to go to new places of investigation that look into other means of identifying for instance, poetic, aesthetic, narrative, intuitive, personal, internationality, kinesthetic, metaphysical –spiritual, evolving consciousness and moral-ethical acknowledgement (Cheng, 2006). This field clearly indicates that the theory of human caring can be extensively applied not only to patients, but human beings as a whole and to animals, as well. The theory applies to anything that requires care. Caring science is also applicable to other things like writing poems, books, preaching and praying, determining behaviors of an individual towards other people and in narrations of stories to other people (Afaf, 1997). For example, if an individual is so caring, he or she will be able to show lost persons the way without cheating them, portraying his or her level of moral-ethics and behavior. An author is liable of writing accurate findings in a book in order to be beneficial to students and other people who will use it. The teacher at school is also liable of teaching students the right things to enable them pass exams and become responsible persons (Julia, 2004). All these are examples of caring science that fit into the above fields. These prove that the theory of human caring by Jean Watson is significant and applicable in several fields. Besides, all these instances show implications of caring moments to one person or to several people in the sense that when a teacher educates students in class, he or she is sharing a caring moment with the students (Delaune, 2002). At the same time, when a bus driver or train captain carries people from one region to the other, they share caring moments with the passengers. Note that caring science is a progressing, new field that is founded in the subject of nursing and progressing nursing science (Reed, 2006). Nevertheless, most presently, caring science has encompassed subjects in the academy, for instance, education, women/feminist, peace studies, ecology, philosophy and ethics. Others include art and humanities, medicine and holistic being. What this implies is that caring science is swiftly growing into a trans-disciplinary or interdisciplinary field of study (Taylor & Lillis, 2001). It, therefore, has significance to all the education, health and human service topics and professionals. Hence, the concept of caring moment is particularly crucial in the nursing field because it describes the identity of nurses and defines the world of patients. Description of the context of caring moment Watson clearly states that a caring instant is the occasion for the nurse and another individual or other people who unify in a way that human precision is developed. Both the nurse and the person, with their extra ordinary marveled fields, have the potential to join in a person-to-person deal (Potter & Perry, 1999). For Watson, a marveled topic is compatible to the individual’s reference frame or completeness of human experience that entails of bodily sensations, feelings, thoughts, goals, spiritual faith, anticipations, environmental situations, and sense of personal perceptions. All these are centered on experience and history of a person, personal, present instances and the depicted future of a person (Julia, 2004). In other words, experience plays a crucial role in the caring process because it allows an individual to recall how he or she was treated in one or more occasions. Several people have those imaginations, which help them have feelings of helping other patients (Reed, 2006). Nurses, on the other hand, are obliged to practice human caring because that is their duty and they need to undertake their jobs with passion. Not easily, an objective for the cared-for, Watson emphasized that the nurse who is the caregiver, also need to be familiar with their own realization and awareness as well as genuine presence of being in a caring session with their patients (Julia, 2004). Besides, both the patient and the nurse can be affected by the caring moment via the options and activities resolved with the association, thereby, affecting and becoming part of their own personal experience. An important concept to consider is the fact that once the nurse takes exceptional care of the patient, this memory can never leave the patient’s mind and on one or several occasions, the patient will exercise the same to another person as part of giving back to the society (Cheng, 2006). This means that the caring moment becomes transpersonal when it permits for the existence of the spirit, which in turn permits the occurrence of the moment to expound the limits of openness and the capability of enlarging human potential. Response to Questions Analyze radical theory assumptions related to person, health, nursing, and environment in the context of the caring moment described Watson describes an individual as a being-on-earth who contains three spheres – mind, body, and spirit that are affected by the aspect of self who is gratis and can make choices. This shows the linkage between the person and the environment which he or she lives in (Afaf, 1997). The environment involves making the room of the patient a comforting, sacred and healing atmosphere. The nurse undertakes this process as an element of healing procedure. It is not something strange to enter into a patient’s room nowadays and find it muddled and unhygienic. A person will always speculate how patients can undergo the process of mind, body, spirit healing in such a surrounding (Delaune, 2002). Watson considers the mind as the access point to the body and spirit. The spirit associates with an individual’s past, present and future life through the process of creative imagination and visualization, which can make them, to either gain hope to live for or lose hope. Watson clearly implied that spirituality sustains primary significance of nurse profession (Taylor & Lillis, 2001). She establishes that the precision of the soul continues to be the strongest aspect of the art of caring in nursing. Some of the most crucial questions practiced by nurses in the caring process are as shown below. I. Inform me about yourself II. Inform me about your bodily sensations III. Tell me about your life experience IV. Inform me about your spiritual and cultural beliefs V. Inform me about your objectives and anticipations This questions help people share their life story with nurses thus, help them know how to assist and care for them (Potter & Perry, 1999). Describe how watsons curative factors were utilized in the transpersonal relationship. Apply a minimum of four curative factors  Watson was exceptionally creative especially in the way she brought out the curative factors and how she applied them to the relationship between nurses and patients (Evelyn & Melanie, 2002). The first three factors are from the philosophical foundation for the science of precision. The rest of curative factors pounce from the foundationally established ones. The fist factor is the formation of a humanistic-unselfish scheme of values. This starts to develop in an individual at a young age with respect shared with the parents. It then arbitrates through a person’s life experiences; the education one acquires and exposure to people (Reed, 2006). This factor is professed as relevant to the personal maturation of the nurses because it fosters altruistic behavior towards other people. The second factor is faith-hope. This is significant to both curative and curative processes in the sense that the nurse need to show care and love to the patients. Without the care of the nurse, the patients can easily lose faith and give up in life. When modern science becomes empty in terms of what to offer to an individual, the nurse continue employing faith and hope to issue a sense of well-being through belief and trust, which are essential to the patient. This means that there is a time when medicine fails altogether but the faith that the nurse gives the patient is enough to give him life again. Therefore, faith and hope is extremely beneficial to patients and has to be practiced by nurses (Afaf, 1997). The third essential factor is cultivation of sensitivity to one’s self and to other people. This aspect examines the essence of the nurse to start to feel an emotion as it imparts itself. The growth of personal feeling is required to mingle authentically and sensitively with others. Struggling to become responsive enables the nurse to be more authentic and motivates self-actualization and self-growth – in both the nurse herself and the patient she precisions. Through this way, the nurse enhances health and higher functionality levels only when they create person-to-person association (Cheng, 2006). This implies that the nurses have to build their inner sense and the heart of tenderness in order to find it beneficial to care for patients. The heart of tenderness is helpful since it makes the nurses feel guilty when they fail to care for patients, which means that they just have to practice caring in order to feel satisfied in their hearts. Another factor is developing a helping-trust relationship. In the nurse-patient relationship, what matters a lot is the mode of communication, which develops affinity and precision (Taylor & Lillis, 2001). The characteristics required in a helping-trust association include empathy, congruence and warmth. Empathy involves showing compassion to the patient and is consistent with congruence, which makes patients feel understood. Warmth, on the other hand, makes patients feel accepted and embraced (Delaune, 2002). Other factors include expression of approach, both positive and negative, as well as, systematic use of technical problem-solving technique for decision-making among others. Include a personal reflection on the personal experience the caring moment that is the basis of the paper    Through Watson’s theory of human caring, a nurse can learn a lot especially concerning the caring moment, which is also an element of healing. First, the nurse understands the entire concept of caring moment, which includes its definition and implication. Then the nurse learns the three key factors of curative, which are essential for all nurses since they enhance the patient’s well-being (Evelyn & Melanie, 2002). The nurse clear learns the caring science, which involves human science course to human caring, humanitarian, experiences and phenomenon. The aspect of transpersonal caring is also taken into consideration with connections, unity of life and the nurse-patient factors acknowledged. The patient can perceive my caring openly because I cannot hide the feeling of tenderness in me, which pushes me to practice transpersonal relationship and the science of caring in order to foster the caring moment (Reed, 2006). Therefore, the patients can always afford smiles when they see me because they will feel comprehended, appreciated, embraced and contented. What I could have done differently as a nurse in transpersonal relationship is to bring in the concept of Supreme Being. As a God-fearing person, I have to let the patient understand that life is given by God and He is the right person to ask for the healing miracle (Julia, 2004). Therefore, the patient can at least understand the existence of God and His abilities. References Cheng MY., (2006), Using Kings Goal Attainment Theory to facilitate drug compliance in a psychiatric patient. Hu Li Za Zhi;53(3):90-7. Delaune SC, (2002), Ladner PK, Fundamental of nursing, standard and practice, 2nd edition, Thomson, New York. George B. Julia (2004), Nursing Theories- The base for professional Nursing Practice , 3rd ed. Norwalk, Appleton & Lange. Meleis Ibrahim Afaf (1997), Theoretical Nursing: Development & Progress, 3rd ed. Philadelphia, Lippincott. Potter A Patricia, Perry G Anne (1992) Fundamentals Of Nursing –Concepts Process & Practice 3rd ed. London Mosby Year Book. Reed PG, (2006), the force of nursing theory guided- practice. Nurs Sci Q;19(3):225 Taylor Carol, Lillis Carol (2001) The Art & Science Of Nursing Care 4th ed. Philadelphia, Lippincott. Wills M.Evelyn, McEwen Melanie (2002). Theoretical Basis for Nursing Philadelphia. Lippincott Williams& wilkins. 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