Summary
Contents
As nursing expands its scientific base and moves into more qualitative approaches, it is important that nursing students have the opportunity to know more about the nurse theorists that offer qualitative theories and methods. One such theorist is Margaret Newman. In Margaret Newman, Joanne Marchione offers an exceptional discussion on this preeminent nursing theorist. Marchione skillfully describes the origin of Newman's theory, the assumptions underlying the theory, the major concepts of meta-paradigm of nursing–including the nursing process–and propositions of the conceptual model itself. Also included are examples for application to practice and research (based on the author's years of continuous experimentation and application of Newman's theory), a bibliography of classic works, critiques and research, and a glossary of important terms.
Overview of Newman's Theory
Overview of Newman's Theory
Newman (1979, 1986) posits that health is process. She claims that pattern is the essence of a holistic view of health. In this view, health is the flow of life. It is a kaleidoscopic evolution of patterning, with contradictions, ambiguities, and paradoxes, continually synthesized into insights that lead to an ever-expanding consciousness (transformation). Movement is fundamental to this dialectical process of transformation. Pattern recognition is a spontaneous insight in relation to a shift in organizational complexity, affording greater freedom and variety of responses to any given situation. Expanding consciousness occurs as a process of pattern recognition (insights) following a synthesis of contradictory events or disturbances in the flow of daily living. Disease and nondisease serve as reflections of ...