Margaret Newman - Nursing Theorist
· Biography and Career of Margaret A. Newman
Margaret A. Newman was born on October 10, 1933. She earned her Bachelor's degree in 1962 from the University of Tennessee and her Master's degree in 1964 from the University of California. While working toward her graduate degree, Newman served as a joint director of nursing of a clinical research center, as well as an assistant professor of nursing at the University of Tennessee in Memphis.
· Theory of Health asExpanding Consciousness
1. "The theory of health as expanding consciousness (HEC) was stimulated by concern for those for whom health as the absence of disease or disability is not possible. Nurses often relate to such people: people facing the uncertainty, debilitation, loss and eventual death associated with chronic illness. The theory has progressed to include the health of all persons regardless of the presence or absence of disease. The theory asserts that every person in every situation, no matter how disordered and hopeless it may seem, is part of the universal process of expanding consciousness – a process of becoming more of oneself, of finding greater meaning in life, and of reaching new dimensions of connectedness with other people and the world" (Newman, 2010).
2. Humans are open to the whole energy system of the universe and constantly interacting with the energy. With this process of interaction humans are evolving their individual pattern of whole.
3. According to Newman understanding the pattern is essential. The expanding consciousness is the pattern recognition.
4. The manifestation of disease depends on the pattern of individual so the pathology of the diseases exists before the symptoms appear so removal of disease symptoms does not change the individual structure.
5. Newman also redefines nursing according to her nursing is the process of recognizing the individual in relation to environment and it is the process of understanding of consciousness.
6. The nurse helps to understand people to use the power within to develop the higher level of consciousness.
7. Thus it helps to realize the disease process, its recovery and prevention.
8. Newman also explains the interrelatedness of time, space and movement.
9. Time and space are the temporal pattern of the individual, both have complementary relationship.
10. Humans are constantly changing through time and space and it shows unique pattern of reality.
· NURSING PARADIGMS
Health
"Health and illness are synthesized as health - the fusion on one state of being (disease) with its opposite (non-disease) results in what can be regarded as health".
Nursing
Nursing is "caring in the human health experience".
Nursing is seen as a partnership between the nurse and client, with both grow in the "sense of higher levels of consciousness"
Human
"The human is unitary, that is cannot be divided into parts, and is inseparable from the larger unitary field"
"Persons as individuals, and human beings as a species are identified by their patterns of consciousness"...
"The person does not possess consciousness-the person is consciousness".
