preview

Jean Watson's Nursing Theorya nd Philosophy Essay

Best Essays

One of the most influential and widely accepted nursing theorist of today is Jean Watson. Her nursing theory Philosophy and Theory of Transpersonal Caring was developed to help foster the caring compassionate side of nurses. The theory is focused around ten carative factors and transpersonal healing and caring relationships. “We are the light in institutional darkness, and in this model we get to return to the light of our humanity” (Alligood 2014). This quote gets at the core of what Jean Watsons’ nursing Theory of Transpersonal Caring aims to achieve Jean Watson’s Background Biography Jean Watson was born on June 10, 1940 in Welch, West Virginia as the youngest of eight children. The city of Welch is located in the Appalachian …show more content…

Watson’s theory circles around 10 ideas that are called caritas in which she elaborates on how nurses should practice caring. These 10 caritas have evolved over the years into what she calls caritas processes, this allowed for a more open ended interpretation. Her theory also revolves around the ideas of transpersonal healing and caring relationships, caring moment/occasion, caring healing modalities. Theoretical Influences Jean Watson was influenced by many historical nursing theorist and philosophers. Watson reports that she was most influenced by the nursing works of Nightingale, Henderson, Leininger, Peplau, and Gadow (Watson 2005). For Watson Nightingale’s commitment to the holistic and ethical caring of her patients was formative. For the formation of her ideas on the interpersonal and transpersonal qualities of congruence, empathy, and warmth she pulled from the works of Carl Rogers. Rogers says the role of nurses is not to control and change our patients but to understand and help guide them, Watson really connected to this thought in what is a highly clinical era (Alligood 2014). Jean took all of the above influences, added her own thoughts and beliefs, and tied them together into one cohesive theory that according to her, “finds common meaning and order to nursing that transcends settings, populations, specialty, and so forth” (Watson 1988). Ten Carative Factors These

Get Access