Jean watson biography

Watson was in an accident that cost the sight of her left eye and subsequently required her to have a prosthesis. She developed a healing process that brought her back to health and experienced the theory of caring in her personal recovery. She said that this experience taught her to see herself and her surroundings in a new way and gave her a more complete insight that she brought to her teaching and nursing career.

After 37 years of marriage, her husband died in March of , but Dr. Watson says that he is still a large part of her life and his memory motivates her to continue her work. In , she received a master's degree in psychiatric mental health nursing with a minor in psychology from the University of Colorado Medical Center in Denver. She did graduate study at the University of Colorado, Boulder, in social and clinical psychology in through and received her Ph.

Presently, she holds the position of Distinguished Professor of Nursing, the highest honor given to faculty members for scholarly work. Watson earned her baccalaureate in nursing from the University of Colorado Nursing in Two years later, she earned a master's degree in psychiatric-mental health nursing, before earning her doctorate in educational psychology and counselling in Watson founded the original Center for Human Caring in Colorado in She is a past president of the National League for Nursing.

Watson has been awarded sixteen honorary doctoral degrees, including thirteen international honorary doctoral degrees. She has received numerous awards including:. America, Ireland. Watson is the author and co-author of over 30 books on caring theory. It set out the frame work of Watson's theory of caring and caritas factors. The book has been continually revised as Watson theories developed, so as to remain a comprehensive overview of the history and evolution of Caring Science philosophy and theory.

Watson's more recent work looks at unitary caring science, examining the role of nurses through the lens of world view of unison, belonging and connection. Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk. Read Edit View history. Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects. Wikidata item. American nurse theorist and nursing professor.

Not to be confused with Jean Watson cross-country skier or Jean Watson writer. According to Watson, caring is central to nursing practice and promotes health better than a simple medical cure. She believes that a holistic approach to health care is central to the practice of caring in nursing. According to her theory, caring can be demonstrated and practiced by nurses.

Caring for patients promotes growth; a caring environment accepts a person as they are and looks to what they may become. Watson also defined three of the four metaparadigm concepts in nursing, including the person or human being, health, and nursing. A human is viewed as greater than and different from the sum of his or her parts. Meanwhile, health is defined as a high level of overall physical, mental, and social functioning, a general adaptive-maintenance level of daily functioning, the absence of illness, or the presence of efforts leading to the absence of illness.

And nursing is a science of persons and health-illness experience mediated by professional, personal, scientific, and ethical care interactions. She does not define the fourth metaparadigm concept of the environment but instead devised 10 caring needs specific carative factors critical to the caring human experience that need to be addressed by nurses with their patients when in a caring role.

Next are the lower-order psychophysical needs or functional needs , including the need for activity, inactivity, and sexuality. The higher-order psychosocial needs or integrative needs include the need for achievement and affiliation. And finally, the higher-order intrapersonal-interpersonal need or growth-seeking need, which is self-actualization.

The assessment includes observation, identification, and review of the problem and the formation of a hypothesis. Creating a care plan helps the nurse determine how variables would be examined or measured and what data would be collected. Intervention is the implementation of the care plan and data collection. Finally, the evaluation analyzes the data, interprets the results, and may lead to an additional hypothesis.

Watson has authored 11 books, shared in the authorship of six books, and has written countless nursing journal articles. The following publications reflect her theory of caring from her ideas about the philosophy and science of caring. Nursing: The Philosophy and Science of Caring This book was reprinted in and translated into Korean and French.

Published in and reprinted in and , this book addressed her conceptual and philosophical problems in nursing. Postmodern Nursing and Beyond Watson describes two personal life-altering events that contributed to her writing. In , she experienced an accidental injury that resulted in the loss of her left eye, and soon after, in , her husband died.

This is a collection of 21 instruments to assess and measure caring, received the American Journal of Nursing Book of the Year Award. This book provides all the essential research tools for assessing and measuring caring for those in the caring professions. The measurements address quality of care, patient, client, nurse perceptions of caring, and caring behaviors, abilities, and efficacy.

Caring Science as Sacred Science In this book, she leads the reader through thought-provoking experiences and the sacredness of nursing by emphasizing deep inner reflection and personal growth, communication skills, use of self-transpersonal growth, and attention to both caring science and healing through forgiveness, gratitude, and surrender.

Jean Watson has been active and hardworking in many community programs during her career. She has been a founder and a member of the Board of Boulder County Hospice and numerous other collaborations with area health care facilities. She has received several research grants and advanced education federal grants and awards and numerous university and private grants, and extramural funding for her faculty and administrative projects and scholarships in human caring.

In , the University of Colorado School of Nursing honored Watson as a distinguished professor of nursing. In , the NLN awarded her an honorary lifetime certificate as a holistic nurse. Her international activities also include an International Kellogg Fellowship in Australia in , a Fulbright Research and Lecture Award to Sweden and other parts of Scandinavia in , and a lecture tour in the United Kingdom Watson has been involved in international projects and has received invitations to New Zealand, India, Thailand, Taiwan, Israel, Japan, Venezuela, Korea, and other places.

Nowadays, a lot of people choose nursing as a profession. The measurements address quality of care, patient, client, nurse perceptions of caring, and caring behaviors, abilities, and efficacy. Caring Science as Sacred Science In this book, she leads the reader through thought-provoking experiences and the sacredness of nursing by emphasizing deep inner reflection and personal growth, communication skills, use of self-transpersonal growth, and attention to both caring science and healing through forgiveness, gratitude, and surrender.

Nowadays, a lot of people choose nursing as a profession. There are many reasons to consider becoming a professional nurse, but compassion is often a trait required of nurses. Caring is the essence of nursing and connotes responsiveness between the nurse and the person; the nurse co-participates with the person. Watson contends that caring can help the person gain control, become knowledgeable, and promote healthy changes.

The nursing model also states that caring can be demonstrated and practiced by nurses. The Philosophy and Science of Caring have four major concepts: human being, health, environment or society, and nursing. The society provides the values that determine how one should behave and what goals one should strive toward. Watson states:. Every society has had some people who have cared for others.

A caring attitude is not transmitted from generation to generation by genes. The culture of the profession transmits it as a unique way of coping with its environment. Human being is a valued person to be cared for, respected, nurtured, understood, and assisted; in general, a philosophical view of a person as a fully functional integrated self.

Health is the unity and harmony within the mind, body, and soul; health is associated with the degree of congruence between the self and the self as experienced. It is defined as a high level of overall physical, mental, and social functioning; a general adaptive-maintenance level of daily functioning; and the absence of illness, or the presence of efforts leading to the absence of illness.

Nursing is a human science of persons and human health-illness experiences mediated by professional, personal, scientific, esthetic, and ethical human care transactions. The actual caring occasion involves actions and choices by the nurse and the individual. The moment of coming together on a caring occasion presents the two persons with the opportunity to decide how to be in the relationship — what to do with the moment.

The transpersonal concept is an intersubjective human-to-human relationship in which the nurse affects and is affected by the other person.

Jean watson biography

The present is more subjectively real, and the past is more objectively real. The past is before or in a different mode of being than the present, but it is not clearly distinguishable. Past, present, and future incidents merge and fuse. Watson devised 10 caring needs specific carative factors critical to the caring human experience that need to be addressed by nurses with their patients when in a caring role.