Jean watson is a nursing theorist born in the United States in 1961. Her Theory of Human Care has made her one of the most prominent figures in the field. The basis of his thinking is the need to avoid the dehumanization of the patient due to the great bureaucratization of health systems.
According to Watson's thesis, caring for the sick has to be practiced in a more interpersonal way and should affect both the human and the spiritual and transpersonal aspects. The latter is understood as the fact of connecting with the deepest part of the patient, beyond the merely physical.
Watson was one of the founders of the Colorado Center for Human Care, as well as the nonprofit Institute for Caring Sciences, which bears her name. Likewise, she has been named honorary doctorate by eight different universities around the world..
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Margaret Jean Harman Watson came into the world on June 10, 1940. Her early years were spent in her birthplace, Welch, a small town in the state of West Virginia. His family is very large, since there are eight siblings, which gave him a strong sense of community..
He completed his primary and secondary studies in centers in West Virginia. When he finished them, Watson studied nursing at Lewis Gale School, located in Roanoke..
After graduating in 1961, Watson moved to Colorado, where he continued his training. Thus, he completed a bachelor's degree at the university of that state, and later, in 1966, he completed a master's degree in Mental Health and Psychiatry. Finally, in 1973 he also completed a master's degree in Educational and Care Psychology.
The nursing theorist got married just after finishing her studies at Lewis Gale, before going to live in Colorado. Her husband, Douglas, passed away in 1988, a huge blow to Watson..
For her part, she suffered a serious accident in 1997, as a result of which she lost her left eye..
Both traumatic experiences led him to publish the third of his books, "Postmodern Nursing and Beyond.".
After Watson finished her doctorate, she began working at the School of Nursing and at the University of Health Sciences in Denver. There, along with some of his colleagues, he founded the Center for Human Care. This center was the first of its kind in the entire United States..
At the beginning of the 80s, he decided to spend a sabbatical year, which he dedicated to completing his professional training in various countries, such as New Zealand or Australia..
On his return, he continued with his teaching work at the University and was involved in the creation of a doctorate program in Nursing. Likewise, he held the position of dean of the University School of Nursing from 1983 to 1990.
After another sabbatical year in 2005, during which he traveled the Camino de Santiago in Spain, he founded a non-profit institution: the Watson Institute of Care Sciences; the purpose was to make his theory known throughout the world.
Jean Watson is the author of numerous publications on nursing for nursing students. Their proposal affirms that self-care is intrinsically connected to healing..
In her own words "the ethics and scale of values of care, healing and health include the professional context and the mission of the nurse for society".
For Watson, in recent decades nursing was leaving aside the human aspect that, in his opinion, should characterize it. That is why he begins to elaborate his Theory of Human Care. She explains why herself when she writes the following:
"Faced with the risk of dehumanization in patient care due to the great administrative restructuring of most health care systems in the world, it is necessary to rescue the human, spiritual and transpersonal aspect, in clinical, administrative, educational and research by nursing professionals ".
For its development, it has been influenced by important personalities, both from its profession and from philosophers. Among these influences are those of Nightingale, Henderson, Hegel or Kierkegaard.
In this way, it places the emphasis of the care that the patient should receive on factors such as empathy, affection and coherence.
Watson drew up a list of seven basic assumptions that support his theory:
1- The only way for care to be effective is to practice it interpersonally.
2- Care must satisfy certain human needs.
3- To be effective, care must promote health and personal and / or family growth.
4- The person must be accepted not only for how he is at the moment, but also for how he can become.
5- You have to create an adequate care environment.
6- Before just healing, care has to integrate knowledge of human behavior to promote health. It is about complementing medicine, offering complete care to patients.
7- The practice of care is essential for nursing.
- Formation of a humanistic-altruistic system of values. Through this factor, care incorporates humanistic values. With these, positive care is promoted and effective relationships are established between the nursing professional and the patient.
- Inculcation of faith-hope.
- Cultivation of sensitivity for oneself and for others. Feelings must take center stage in the relationship between the nurse and the patient. You have to accept them so that sensitivity increases.
- Development of a helping-trust relationship. Trust between the professional and the patient is crucial for the correct application of care. For example, encourage empathy and communication.
- Promotion and acceptance of the expression of feelings. Usually it is only the patient who expresses his feelings, but the nurse must also do so. Also, they both have to accept that they can be negative..
- Systematic use of the scientific method of problem solving for decision making. The nurse is not simply the doctor's assistant; you also have to bring a scientific approach to your field.
- Promotion of interpersonal teaching-learning. It is the factor that separates healing from caring. The nursing professional must learn how to adequately inform the patient and show him how to take care of himself.
- Provision of a supportive, protective and corrective mental, physical, sociocultural and spiritual environment.
- Assistance in the gratification of human needs. Nurses must recognize that patients have needs of all kinds, and must help them with these. In addition, it is necessary that they help the sick to understand that first they have to cover the minor needs, and later face the greater ones.
- Permission of existential-phenomenological forces. The summary of this factor is that the responsibility of nurses is not limited to these ten points, but must take actions that help prevent possible health problems.
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