Foundation of Humanistic Nursing Theory
Logic of Phenomenological Methodology
P & Z HUMANISTIC NURSING THEORY
Theoretical Roots
Theoretical Roots
Theoretical Roots encompasses the first half of Paterson & Zderad's book covering how their theory developed and includes:
1. Humanistic Nursing Practice Theory
The first chapter described how the theory came about and described Humanistic Nursing. As their words spoke across time and cultures they proposed that humanistic nursing practice is:
nurses consciously and deliberately approach nursing as an existential experience. Then, they reflect on the experience and phenomenologically describe the calls they receive, their responses, and what they come to know from their presence in the nursing situation. It is believed that compilation and complementary syntheses of these phenomenological descriptions over time will build and make explicit a science of nursing. (P & Z, p. 3)
2. Foundations of Nursing Practice Theory
The second chapter further defined and explained humanistic nursing and how and at what point Paterson and Zderad started theory building. Their theory has its roots in phenomenology and they start with attempting to define the phenomena of nursing regardless of the setting, occurrence, culture, or condition. Their theory also has roots in an existential perspective. Paterson and Zderad further discussed how the nursing phenomena interaction (as it occurs ) is greater than the sum total of all the parts.
So it is difficult to focus on the phenomenon of nursing as an entity...if we can 'bracket' (hold in abeyance)...preconceived viewpoints they signify, we can consider the thing itself, the act of nursing in its most simple and general appearance. (P & Z, p. 11)
3. Humanistic Nursing: A Lived Dialogue
The third chapter invited the reader to ponder on how dialogue is created when the act of nursing takes place. During this interaction the context or meaning is defined and described. Further, dialogue between people may not always be in the form of words but encompasses many forms.
Humanistic Nursing, viewed as a lived dialogue, offers a frame of orientation that places the center of our universe at the nurse-patient intersubjective transaction. Insightful recognition of the lived nursing act as the point around which all our functions revolve,...It does provide, for all nurses, a true sense of direction that can be actualized by each unique nurse through creative human dialogue. (P & Z, p. 11)
4. Phenomenon of Community
The fourth chapter brings the sense of community into the equation and how it impacts the players. Paterson and Zderad use the term loosely with the term community referring to family members within a residence and to the city or culture where the nurse or person interacting with the nurse reside. In this chapter Paterson and Zderad cited a variety of authorities from Plato to Martin Buber on how this sense of community affects various aspects of the nursing interaction. It is in this chapter they bring forth the term 'Noetic Locus' that is described as follows:
Each nurse is a 'knowing place'....My ever developing internalized community of world thinkers dynamically interrelated with my conscious awareness of my experienced nursing realm allows my appreciation of my human gifts and the ever enrichment of myself as a 'knowing place.' (P & Z, p. 39).