WATSON’S PHILOSOPHY and THEORY OF

TRANSPERSONAL CARING

⚫Philosophy and Science of Caring

⚫Caring in nursing conveys physical acts but embraces

the mind-body-spirit as it reclaims the embodied spirit
as its focus of attention
 Jean Watson (1979-1985). Jean Watson’s
Philosophy and Science of Caring

⚫addresses how nurses care for their patients

and how that caring translates into better
health plans to help patients get healthy
Jean Watson
⚫Born in Southern West Virginia
⚫Earned BSN in 1964; MS in Psychiatric Mental Health
Nursing in 1966 and PhD in educational psychology
and counseling in 1973
⚫A distinguished Professor and Director of Center of
Human Caring School of Nursing, University of
Colorado Health Science Center, Denver.
⚫Founder of the original Center for Human
Caring in Colorado and is a Fellow of the
American Academy of Nursing
⚫Served as Dean of Nursing at the University of
Health Sciences Center
⚫Past president of the National League for
Nursing
⚫Awards/Honors: International Kellog
Fellowship in Australia
: Fulbright Research Award in Sweden
: 6 Honorary Doctoral degrees
: 3 International Honorary Doctorates (Sweden,
United Kingdom, Quebec, Canada)
⚫Nursing: The Philosophy and Science of
Caring- foundation of Watson’s theory of
nursing, published in 1979
⚫1988- Nursing: Human Science and Human
Care
Metaparadigm
1. PERSON (Personhood)/(Human Being)
⚫Viewed holistically wherein the body, mind and soul are
interrelated; each part a reflection of the whole, yet the whole is
greater than and different from the sum of parts
⚫The person possesses 3 spheres of being- body, mind and
soul
⚫Human being – valued person in and of him to be cared for,
respected, nurtured and understood and assisted
⚫A fully functional integrated self
 ENVIRONMENT
⚫Provides the values that determine how one should behave
and what goals one should strive toward
⚫Values are affected by change in social, cultural and spiritual
arenas which in turn affects the perception of the person and
can lead to stress
⚫Caring has existed in every society.
⚫A caring attitude is not transmitted from generation to
generation by genes. It is transmitted by the culture of the
profession as a unique way of coping with its environment.
 3. HEALTH
⚫Refers to unity and harmony within the mind, body and soul
⚫Associated with the degree of congruence between self as
perceived and as experienced
With 3 elements
⚫A high level of over-all physical, mental and social
functioning
⚫A general adaptive-maintenance level of daily functioning
⚫The absence of illness
4. Nursing
⚫A human science of people and human
health-illness experiences that are
mediated by professional, personal,
scientific, aesthetic and ethical human
care transactions.
Philosophy and Science of Caring
⚫7 Assumptions and 10 carative factors
⚫Basic Assumptions
⚫Caring can be effectively demonstrated and practiced
interpersonally
⚫Effective caring promotes health and individual or family
growth
⚫Caring responses accept a person not only as he or she is now
but as what he or she may become
⚫A caring environment is one that offers the development of
potential while allowing the person to choose the best action for
himself or herself at a given point in time
⚫Caring is more healthogenic than is curing
⚫The practice of caring is central to nursing
 Ten (10) Carative Factors “Clinical Caritas”
Processes (CCP)
1. Practice of loving kindness and equanimity toward self and other
within context of (caring consciousness) caritas consciousness
⚫The formation of a humanistic-altruistic system of values
⚫Begins developmentally at an early age with values shared with
the parents
⚫Mediated through one’s own life experiences, the learning one
gains and exposure to the humanities
⚫Is perceived as necessary to the nurse’s own maturation which
then promotes altruistic behavior towards others
Characteristics needed: empathy, congruence, warmth
2. Being authentically present, enabling, sustaining, and
honoring faith, hope, and deep belief system and the inner
subjective world of self/other
⚫Faith-hope
⚫Essential to both carative and curative processes
⚫When modern science has nothing further to offer the
person, the nurse can continue to use faith-hope to provide a
sense of well-being though beliefs which are meaningful to the
individual
3. Cultivation of one’s own spiritual practices and transpersonal
self, going beyond ego self, opening to others with sensitivity
and compassion
⚫Cultivation of sensitivity to one’s self and to others
⚫Explores the need of the nurse to begin to feel an emotion as
it presents itself.
⚫Development of one’s own feeling is needed to interact
genuinely and sensitively with others
⚫Striving to become sensitive, makes the nurse more
authentic, which encourages self-growth and self-
actualization, in both the nurse and those with whom the
nurse interacts
⚫The nurses promote health and higher level functioning
only when they form person-to-person relationship
4. Developing and sustaining a helping-trusting, authentic
caring relationship
⚫Establishing a helping-trust relationship
⚫Strongest tool is the mode of communication, which
establishes rapport and caring
⚫She has defined the characteristics needed in the helping-
trust relationship
⚫These are- congruence, empathy, warmth
⚫Communication involves verbal, nonverbal and listening in a
manner which connotes empathetic understanding
5. Being present to, and supportive of, the expression of positive
and negative feelings as a connection with deeper spirit of self
and the one-being-cared for
⚫The expression of feelings, both positive and negative
⚫According to Watson, “feelings alter thoughts and behavior,
and they need to be considered and allowed for in a caring
relationship
⚫Such expression improves one’s level of awareness
⚫Awareness of the feelings helps to understand the behavior it
engenders
6. Creative use of self and all ways of knowing as part of
the caring process to engage in artistry of caring-
healing practices/caritas
The systematic use of the scientific problem-
solving method of decision making
- Scientific problem solving method- the only method
that allows for control and prediction, and that permits
self-correction
7. Engaging in genuine teaching-learning experience that attends
to unity of being and meaning, attempting to stay within other’s
frame of reference
⚫Promotion of Interpersonal teaching-learning
⚫The caring nurse must focus on the learning process as much
as the teaching process
⚫Understanding the person’s perception of the situation assists
the nurse to prepare a cognitive plan
8. Creating healing environment at all levels (physical and non-
physical), subtle environment of energy and consciousness,
whereby wholeness, beauty, comfort, dignity and peace are
potentiated
⚫Provision for a supportive, protective and/or corrective,
mental, physical, socio-cultural and spiritual environment
⚫Watson divides these into external and internal variables,
which the nurse manipulates in order to provide support &
protection for the person’s mental & physical well-being
⚫Watson suggests that the nurse also must provide comfort,
privacy, and safety as part of this carative factor.
9. Assisting the basic needs, with an intentional caring
consciousness, administering “human care essentials,” which
potentiate alignment of mindbodyspirit, wholeness and unity of
being in all aspects of care; tending to both the embodied spirit
and evolving spiritual emergence
⚫Assistance with the gratification of human needs
⚫It is grounded in a hierarchy of needs similar to that of
Maslow’s
⚫She has created a hierarchy which she believes is relevant to the
science of caring in nursing
⚫According to her, each need is equally important for quality
nursing care and the promotion of optimal health. All the needs
deserve to be attended to and valued.
 Watson’s Ordering of Needs
Lower Lower Higher Higher order
Order Order Order Needs
Needs Needs Needs (Intrapersona
(Biophysica (Psycho (Psycho l-
l Needs) physical social Interpersonal
Needs) Needs) Needs)
Food and Activity- Achieve Self-
fluid Inactivity ment actualization
Elimination Sexuality Affiliation
Ventilation
10. Opening and attending to spiritual- mysterious and
existential dimensions of one’s own life-death; soul care for
self and the one-being-cared-for
⚫Allowance for Existential-phenomenological forces
⚫Phenomenology is a way of understanding people from
the way things appear to them, for their frame of reference
⚫Existential psychology is the study of human existence using
phenomenological analysis.
⚫This factor helps the nurse to reconcile and mediate
incongruity of viewing the person holistically while at the same
time attending to the hierarchical ordering of needs.
⚫The nurse assists the person to find the strength or courage
to confront life or death.
 MAJOR ASSUMPTIONS:
1. Transpersonal Caring Relationship
⚫Characterizes a special kind of human care
relationship that depends on
1. the nurse’s moral commitment in protecting and
enhancing human dignity as well as the deeper/higher
self
2. the nurse’s caring consciousness communicated to
preserve and honor the embodied spirit, therefore, not
reducing the person to the moral status of an object
3. the nurse’s caring consciousness and connection
having the potential to heal since experience,
perception and intentional connection are taking place
2. Caring Occasion/Caring Moment
⚫The moment when the nurse and another
person come together in such a way that an
occasion for human caring is created