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Theory of Health as Expanding Consciousness
Nursing (RLE70)
Capitol University
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Theory of Health as Expanding Consciousness
HISTORY AND BACKGROUND
Margaret A. Newman is recognized to be a living legend of the American Academy of Nursing. She is known as American Nurse, a University professor and a Nursing Theorist. She was born on October 10, 1933, in Memphis, Tennessee. For her educational background, she earned a bachelor's degree in home economics and English from Baylor University in Waco, Texas, and a second bachelor's degree in nursing from the University of Tennessee in Memphis. Her master's degree in medical-surgical nursing and teaching is from the University of California, San Francisco. She earned her doctorate in nursing science and rehabilitation nursing in 1971 from the New York University.
Newman held academic positions in various universities in the US until her retirement in 1996.
Newman achieved numerous honors and awards from different renowned universities and prestigious nursing organizations for her great contributions to nursing profession.
Margaret Newman died on December 18, 2019.
THEORY OF HEALTH AS EXPANDING CONSCIOUSNESS
“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 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.”
Sources
The theory of health as expanding consciousness emanated from Newman’s early personal family experiences. While caring for her mother who was experiencing restricted body movement because of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Newman became interested in nursing.
Upon the development of Newman’s Theory, she was influenced by earlier theoretical works namely: Rogers' Theory of Unitary Human Beings, Hegel's Fusion of Opposites, Bentov's Concept of the Evolution of Consciousness, Bohm's Theory of Implicate, Young's Theory of Process, and the description of Moss of love as the highest level of consciousness.
MAJOR CONCEPTS & DEFINITIONS
In the early development of the theory, Newman asserted that the phenomena of inquiry for nursing should be parameters of human wholeness and that
there were characteristics of people that identified the whole (Newman, 1979).
Major concepts identified by Newman that time were health, pattern, consciousness, time, space, and movement.
Health
- In Newman's theory, health is an expansion of consciousness defined as the informational capacity of the system and seen as the ability of the person to interact with the environment (Newman, 1994a). According to Newman (1999), "Health is the pattern of the whole, and wholeness, which one cannot lose it or gain it".
- Newman sees the life process as progression toward higher level of consciousness. Newman views the expansion of consciousness as what life and health is.
Pattern
- Pattern characterized by "movement, diversity, and rhythm" and is described as a "design, or framework as is seen in person-environment interactions". It is the information that depicts the whole and understanding of the meaning of all of the relationships at once (M. Newman, personal communication, 2004).
- Pattern is what identifies an individual as a particular person. Pattern is identified as the wholeness of a person with 7 manifestations; moving, communicating, perceiving, feeling, knowing, relating and choosing.
- An examples of pattern of a person are the genetic pattern that contains information that directs becoming, the voice pattern and the movement pattern.
- In her theory, Newman developed pattern as a major concept used to understand the individual as a whole being (1986, 1994,2008).
- Patterns have 3 dimensions (movement, space, & time), which will be discuss later on.
Consciousness
- Consciousness includes not only cognitive and affective awareness, but also the "interconnectedness of the entire living system which includes physicochemical maintenance and growth processes as well as the immune system" (Newman, 1990a p. 38).
- In 1978 Newman identified three correlates of consciousness (time, movement, and space) as manifestations of the pattern of the whole. The life process is seen as a progression toward higher levels of consciousness. As what I have said before, Newman (1979) views the expansion of consciousness as what life and health is all about, and the sense of time as an indicator in the changing level of consciousness.
Movement-Space-Time
- Newman emphasizes the importance of examining movement-space-time together as
Theory of Health as Expanding Consciousness
dimensions of emerging patterns of consciousness
- It reflects the organization, which identifies the pattern in movement, 0 movements = death.
MAJOR ASSUMPTIONS/METAPARADIGM
The foundation for Newman's assumptions is her definition of health, which is grounded in Rogers' 1970 model for nursing. From this, Newman developed assumptions that continue to support her theory (Newman, 2008).
- Health encompasses conditions heretofore described as illness.
- These pathological conditions can be considered a manifestation of the total pattern of the individual.
- The pattern of the individual that eventually manifests itself as pathology is primary and exists prior to structural or functional changes.
- Removal of the pathology in itself will not change the pattern of the individual.
- If becoming “ill” is the only way an individual’s pattern can manifest itself, then that is health for that person.
Newman’s implicit assumptions about human nature include being unitary, an open system in continuous interconnectedness with the open system of the universe, and continuously engaged in an evolving pattern of the whole.
She asserts the interrelated concepts of nursing, person, health, and environment.
- Nursing:
- Nursing is "caring in the human health experience".
- It is seen as a partnership between the nurse and client, with both grow in the "sense of higher levels of consciousness". [explanation of Nurse and patient coming together and moving apart in process recognition, insight and transformation.]
- Person:
- In this model, the human is unitary. Humans cannot be divided into parts and is inseparable from the larger unitary field.
- Individual is identified by their individual patterns of consciousness within an overall pattern of expanding consciousness.
- Health:
- Health and illness are synthesized as health. That is the fusion on one state of being (disease) with its opposite (non- disease) results in what can be considered as health.
- Environment:
- is described as a "universe of open systems".
- Newman’s Assumption of Environment is built upon Roger's definition. It is described as being the larger whole which contains the consciousness of the individual.
Conclusion:
Newman’s theory is considered a grand nursing theory. She states that people cannot be divided into parts. Health is central to the theory, and is seen as a process of a developing awareness of the individual self and the person’s environment. She also states that “consciousness is a manifestation of an evolving pattern of person-environment interaction.”
Newman’s Health as Expanding Consciousness Theory is beneficial because it can be applied in any setting and “generates caring interventions.”
Theory of Health as Expanding Consciousness
Course: Nursing (RLE70)
University: Capitol University
