SCIENCE

OF
UNITARY
HUMAN
BEINGS
Martha E. Rogers
 BACKGROUND
Martha Rogers is known primarily for her contributions to the
development of nursing science and the development of nursing as a
profession.
• Born :May 12, 1914, Dallas, Texas, USA 
• Diploma : Knoxville General Hospital School of Nursing(1936)
• Graduation in Public Health Nursing : George Peabody College, TN,
1937
• MA :Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, 1945
• MPH :Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, 1952
• Doctorate in Nursing :Johns Hopkins University,
Baltimore, 1954
• Fellowship: American academy of nursing
• Position: Professor Emerita, Division of Nursing, New
York University, Consultant, Speaker
• Died : March 13 , 1994
There are eight concepts in Rogers’ nursing
theory:
• energy field
• openness
• pattern
• pan-dimensionality
• homeodynamic principles
• resonance
• helicy
• and integrality
ENERGY FIELD
Characteristics which describes the life process of
human:
• The energy field is the fundamental unit of both the
living and nonliving. 
• This energy field "provide a way to perceive people
and environment as irreducible wholes"
Rogers consider man (unitary human
being) as an energy field co-existing
within the universe.
Man is in continuous interaction with
each environment.
The energy fields continuously varies in intensity,
density, and extent.
Unitary man is a “four dimensional
energy field identified by pattern and
manifesting characteristics that are
specific to the whole and which cannot
be predicted from the knowledge of
parts.”
 When nurses apply Rogers theory from a
standpoint that humans coexists with their
environment, they can treat their patients
and help them in the process to change
better health.
SUB-CONCEPTS

Openness 

• The human field and the environmental field are constantly

exchanging their energy. 
• There are no boundaries or barrier that inhibit energy flow
between fields.
• There are no boundaries that stop energy
flow between the human environment
fields.
• It refers to qualities exhibited by open
systems; human beings and their
environment are open systems.
“Humans are dynamic energy fields who are
integral with the environment and are
continuously evolving.”
An individual coexist within their
environment and so health and wellness/illness is
inseparable from their surroundings.
 Pattern 
• Pattern is defined as the distinguishing characteristic of an
energy field perceived as a single waves.
• "pattern is an abstraction and it gives identity to the field" 
• Described as fast or slow.
• Manifest disease, illness.
Pan dimensionality 

• Pan dimensionality is defined as "non linear

domain without spatial or temporal attributes" 
• The parameters that human use in language to
describe events are arbitrary. 
• The present is relative, there is no temporal
ordering of lives. 
Homeodynamic principles:
• The principles of homeodynamic postulates the way of
perceiving unitary human beings.
• The fundamental unit of the living system is an energy field.
 Homeodynamic principles should
be understood as a dynamic version
of homeostasis (a relatively steady
state of internal operation in the
living systems).
Three principle of homeodynamics: 

•Resonancy
•Helicy
•Integrality
Resonance

• Resonance is an ordered arrangement of

rhythm characterizing both human field and
environmental field that undergoes
continuous dynamic metamorphosis in the
human environmental process.
• It speaks to the nature of the change
occurring between humans and
environmental fields.
• The life process in human beings is a
symphony of rhythmical vibrations
oscillating at various frequencies.
Helicy

• The principle of Helicy postulates an ordering of

the humans evolutionary emergency. 
• Helicy describes the unpredictable, but
continuous, nonlinear evolution of energy fields
as evidenced by non repeating rhythmicities. 
• The human environment field is a dynamic
open system in which change between the
human and environment.
• This change is also innovative. Because of
constant interchange, an open system is
never the same at any two moments; rather,
it is continually new or different.
Integrality

• The mutual, continuous relationship of the human

energy field and the environmental field . 
• Changes occur  by the continuous repatterning of the
human and environmental fields by resonance waves. 
• The fields are one and integrated but unique to each
other.
• Because of the inseparability of human beings
and their environment, sequential changes in
the life processes are continuous revisions
occurring from interactions between human
beings and their environment.
• Between the two entities, there is a constant
mutual interaction and mutual change whereby
simultaneous molding is taking place at the
same time.
• A unitary human being is an "irreducible, indivisible,
Unitary Human Being (Person)

pan dimensional (four-dimensional) energy field

identified by pattern and manifesting characteristics
that are specific to the whole and which cannot be
predicted from knowledge of the parts" and "a unified
whole having its own distinctive characteristics which
cannot be perceived by looking at, describing, or
summarizing the parts."
PERSON
Rogers also explains that people have the capacity to participate in the
process of change.
“The human energy field and the universal energy field are constantly
interacting.”
Example:
Patient experience: Patient’s perception of importance and judgement
from the nurse.
Nurse role: Nurses can facilitate patient dignity by practicing self-
awareness of verbal and non-verbal communication, engage the patient
to participate in care.
Environment
• The environment is an "irreducible, pan dimensional energy
field identified by pattern and integral with the human field" 
• The field coexist and are integral. 
• Manifestation emerge from this field and are perceived. 
Human energy is one with the energy in their universe.

• What are the physical surroundings of a patient’s

milieu?
• Healing colors, soft ambient sounds, smell that
enhance a therapeutic environment.
• People physically in the patient’s environment (family,
friends, staff) are influences/synergy to healing.
• The nurse is a factor of the healing environment ( a therapeutic
interpersonal process between the nurse and the patient.
• Therapeutic use of self.
• How can you enhance a therapeutic environment?
Allow yourself to be present in the patient’s environment.
Through active listening
Acknowledging patient’s concerns
Practice kindness and empathy
Health

• an expression of the life process; they are the

"characteristics and behavior emerging out of the
mutual, simultaneous interaction of the human and
environmental fields"
• Health and illness are the part of the same
continuum.
• The multiple events occurring during the life
process show the extent to which a person
is achieving his or her maximum health
potential.
• The events vary in their expressions from
greatest health to those conditions that are
incompatible with the maintaining life
process.
Health: Wellness in the mind, body, and spirit is
influenced by perception and the background of
social interaction and the environment.
Example

Patient experience: Lower socioeconomic status is related to greater

incidence of adverse health outcomes.
Nurse role: Nurses apply theory to asses and develop unique patient
intervention.
The nursing process has three steps in
Rogers’ Theory of Unitary Human Beings:
• Assessment
• voluntary mutual patterning
• and evaluation.
The areas of assessment are:
• the total pattern of events at any given point in space-time
• simultaneous states of the patient and his or her environment
• rhythms of the life process,
• supplementary data,
• categorical disease entities,
• subsystem pathology,
• and pattern appraisal.
The assessment should be a comprehensive assessment of the
human and environmental fields.
MUTUAL PATTERNING of the human and
environmental fields include:
• Sharing knowledge
• Offering choices
• Empowering the patient
• Fostering patterning
• Evaluation
• Repeat pattern appraisal, which includes nutrition, work/leisure
activities, wake/sleep, cycles, relationships, pain and fear,/hope
• Identify dissonance and harmony
• Validate appraisal with the patient
• Self-reflection for the patient
Nursing is a science and an art that
concentrates on the nature and direction of
human progress and improvement.
• The science of nursing aims to provide a
body of abstract knowledge growing out of
scientific research and logical analysis and
capable of being translated into nursing
practice.
Nursing
Theory of Unitary Human Beings views nursing as
both a science and an art.
 
• An organized body of knowledge which is specific to nursing
is arrived at by scientific research and logical analysis.
• Art of nursing practice.
• The creative use of science for the betterment of the
human 
• The creative use of its knowledge is the art of its practice
Nursing exists to serve people.
It is the direct and overriding
responsibility to the society.
SCOPE OF NURSING GOALS
Nursing aims to
assist people in achieving their maximum health potentials,
maintenance and promotion of health,
prevention of disease,
nursing diagnosis, intervention, and rehabilitation
 Rogers claims that nursing exists to
serve people, and the safe practice of
nursing depends on the nature and
amount of scientific knowledge the nurse
brings to his/her practice.
THANK YOU