Margaret NEWMAN

Theory name:

Health as Expanding Consciousness

Theory type:

Grand theory

Key Concept:

Health is a process of expanding consciousness (a pattern of interaction between an individual and their environment), not just the absence of disease

Focus:

Illness as a step in expanding awareness

How she viewed the person:

Individuals, families, and even entire communities who experience personal growth and expanded awareness through patterns of interaction with their environment
and their condition.

How she views health:

A process of becoming more fully oneself through the expansion of consciousness

How she viewed the environment:

An extension of the person, consisting of all conditions, influences, and patterns that interact with and shape the individual’s experience of health.

How she viewed nursing:

Assisting individuals in recognizing the meaning of their life patterns and
experiences to promote healing, growth, and expanded consciousness.

Examples:

A patient wonders why they keep contracting respiratory diseases. The nurse helps
them assess the patterns of their behavior and their interactions with the environment that lead up to the disease, leading them to greater awareness and healthier choices

Influence of Martha Rogers Theory

• Theory of Health as Expanding Consciousness stems from Rogers’s theory of Unitary Human Beings.

• Assumptions about patterning of persons in interaction with the environment are basic to Newman’s view of consciousness as a pattern of person– environment interaction.

• Consciousness includes interconnectedness of the entire living system
  Health is more of absence of illness about becoming more aware of yourself, expanding consciousness

Assumptions about humans

• Open energy systems (humans)

• How people come out of negative experiences and have growth and a new positive mindset 

Patterns on consciousness

• Is first that of person, surrounded by family, then community, world, and endless other patterns, making an infinite whole

• The pattern of the whole is the phenomenon of nursing practice

• How conscious someone is in their life so they can find meaning