Essay Example on Jean Watson's Caring Theory: Enhancing Healing and Satisfaction

Jean Watson's Theory of Human Caring developed from the founder's desire to understand the meaning of humanity and life (Clark, 2016). Hence, she established a list of what she termed as carative factors in place of the word curative to refer to a unique set of nursing practices that can enhance the healing process for the patient as well as provide a justifiable contentment of the nurse with the care given to the patient (RiegelI, CrossettiI, & Siqueira, 2018). Therefore, the intention of curative factors was to provide a fulfilling healing experience for both the patient and the nurse during the healing process (Clark, 2016). Watson explains her curative factors as hinged on human-human connections where caring is an interaction between human beings, specifically, patients and nurses with the intention of connecting the patient's spirit or higher source of divinity. Carative factors or principles are at the core of Watson's healing philosophy, the focus of this discussion will be on the second and tenth principles that are namely, installation of faith-hope and the allowance for existential-phenomenological-spiritual forces (RiegelI, et al., 2018). To this end, the paper will discuss the problem of nursing palliative care in instilling faith in patients who have given up hope in life (Herrestad, Biong, McCormack, Borg, & Karlsson, 2014).

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Watson's school of thought stems from the assumption that a transpersonal caring relationship serves to allow individuals in the caring occasion to develop authentic relationships where optimal healing and caring can take place (RiegelI, et al., 2018). Palliative care is one of the areas of nursing where very little help comes from the professional practice of nursing since extending life is often in vain owing to the reality that that remains the certainty of eventual death (Kellas, Castle, Johnson, & Cohen, 2017). Olsman, Leget, Onwuteaka-Philispsen, and Willems (2014) contend that hope in palliative care should take a realistic perspective where the caregiver must provide the patient with realistic expectations through truthfulness. As such, the healthcare giver must foster hope through identifying and acknowledging the realities of end-of-life care. The disconnect with Watson's school of thought is such that creating hope means that nurses should evaluate whether hard truths about palliative care can result in dwindling hopes rather than building them. According to Riegeli et al. (2018), the second carative principle on instilling faith-hope serves to facilitate the healing process positively. However, healing is often not feasible in palliative care.

Hence, the option that nurses are left with when it comes to carative factors for application in palliative care resides in carative factor associated with the allowance for existential-phenomenological-spiritual forces to take center stage (RiegelI, et al., 2018). Clark (2016) adds that the transpersonal relationship that the caregiver develops with the patient should emanate from the heart. Further, when done intentionally, the potential for unseen energetic fields in changing and promoting an environment of healing can take root. Put another way, Clark (2016) believes that the carative factor on spirituality demands that the nurse must give hope to patients in palliative care by making them believe in miracles. Olsman, et al. (2014) notes that patients in palliative care are often hopeless for the chance to come out of their condition and resume a normal life. To this end, the chances that palliative care patients can have a sense of hopefulness for the future are minimal to nil. Similar sentiments by Herrestad, et al. (2014) present the implication that palliative care patients need all the support they need to accept their fate. However, that contradicts Watson's carative principles on instilling hope in patients towards enacting the healing process.

The question that begs, therefore, is how can nurses guided by Watson's carative factors provide much-needed hope for patients who have no faith in healing owing to their end-of-life care status? Clark (2016) answers this question by stating that when a nurse is self-conscious of his or her surroundings, he or she acts from a place of love in each caring moment. Perhaps it is this show of love or being affectionate towards the patient that ultimately establishes hope towards living where there seems to be none. Caring moments Watson defines as the moment when a nurse interacts with a patient by applying any of the ten carative factors in what she terms as the Caritas process (RiegelI, et al., 2018). The implication for nursing practice, therefore, lies in the application of the 10th caring factor in the Caritas process that pertains to appealing to spirituality as a cathartic avenue for creating hope that the patient can depend on a miracle. Riegeli et al. (2018) add that such an appeal to a higher power or spiritual authority can take the form of engaging in prayer or seeking divine intervention from the belief of the existence of God who has authority over ailments.

To this end, hope can be created for healing not from the limited medical capabilities or nursing practice actions that are applicable to the provision of medical care. In a palliative care situation, patients are often clinging to a miracle since, despite all efforts, financial resources, and physical willpower all hope is lost and the inevitability of death faces the individual in the face (Olsman, et al., 2014). Nonetheles, Herrestad, et al. (2014) notes that all attempts should be made to create a semblance of hope where the patient can cling on faith as a strategy to prolong life even if for a short while in palliative care settings. Sentiments by RiegelI, et al. (2018) imply that the state of being is a combination of body soul and mind that constitute a person. All these have influences on each other, therefore, the state of the mind and the soul have an impact on the wellbeing of the body. The healing process does not work in isolation either, the state of the mind, the body and the soul must be in unison to effect a positive change in the healing process. The challenge that nurses must meet therefore is to allow spirituality to be the cornerstone of initiating the healing process.

From a functional perspective, hope as a coping mechanism assists patients and nurse practitioners alike to focus on fostering optimism in the supernatural (Olsman, et al., 2014). Kellas, et al. (2017) note that it is having faith in the dark versus light that can at times assist patients who are giving up on hope to cling on to life. In the case of palliative care, nurses have an obligation of communicating directly, plainly, and objectively to patients whose only hope for recovery can be attainable through divine intervention (RiegelI, et al., 2018). From a perspective of narration, hope beings about the meaning that are valuable to patients in palliative care where healthcare professionals communicate the limitations of medical practice in the cure of the ailment but that hope relies on divine intervention (Olsman, et al., 2014). To this end, Clark (2016) notes that once the realization of faith is healing is taken to the supernatural realm, the patient automatically develops a sense of peace within themselves which then serves to extend or prolong their hold onto life due to the expectation of supernatural intervention. Kellas, et al. (2017) make the observation that although not always the case, few instances of complete recovery from palliative care have been attributed to spiritual, supernatural or divine power.

The role of the nurse practitioner, hence, is to evaluate the spirituality of the patient who is admitted in palliative care with the intent of establishing hope or faith in the belief that regardless of the failure of all medical attempts to heal, a spiritual intervention can offer a solution. To this end, Watson posits that allowing and being open to miracles is a process that will require the patient to transcend in thoughts from the realm of the physical to that of the mysterious dimensions of one's life and death. In essence, the nurse should work with the patient to make it clear to them that soul care is a self-care process that they must actively engage if they are to initiate the process of healing from the source of supernatural healing (Clark, 2016). RiegelI, et al. (2018) reiterate the importance of Jean Watsons' concepts as pertains to caring as a solution to the scientifically inclined medical practices that are not representative of the totality of the human condition. Patients in palliative care, therefore, need to understand that their welfare is not merely in the physical realm and that they should, therefore, also tether their spiritual connection to the supernatural realm.

Essentially, the conclusion of the discussion brings to the fore the ramifications of the thesis set out in the introduction paragraph that aimed at linking Jean Watson's Caring principles to a challenge in the medical practice of nursing. To this end, palliative care was identified to present a challenge to nurse practitioners who are required, by Watson's second principle of caring, to provide hope for healing to patients. Nonetheless, achieving the objective of creating hope and faith in healing in the case of end-of-life care is quite problematic owing to the defeatist attitude that patients will often present. Notwithstanding, the discussion has offered principle 10 among Jean Watson's principles that touch on allowing existential-phenomenological-spiritual forces to take center stage as the nurse prepares the patient to embrace their fate in death. In this regard, various truths and perspectives have been presented where the nurse can approach the palliative care patient with an objective evaluation of their state of being. As such, considering the wholistic composite of mankind that extend beyond the physical body to include the mind and the soul are concepts that can develop a critical evaluation of possibilities in the supernatural realm that can bring healing. Therefore, it is imperative that nurse practitioners assist their palliative care patients to develop hope and faith in healing from the belief in the intervention of a supernatural source of power to provide them healing.

References

Clark, C. S. (2016). Watson's human caring theory: Pertinent transpersonal and humanities concepts for educators. Humanities, 5(2), 21. doi:10.3390/h5020021

Herrestad, H., Biong, S., McCormack, B., Borg, M., & Karlsson, B. (2014). A pragmatist approach to the hope discourse in health care research. Nursing Philosophy, 15(3), 211-220. doi:10.1111/nup.12053

Kellas, J. K., Castle, K. M., Johnson, A., & Cohen, M. Z. (2017). Communicatively constructing the bright and dark sides of hope: Family caregivers experiences during end of life cancer care. Behavioral Sciences, 7(2), 2076-328X. doi:10.3390/bs7020033

Olsman, E., Leget, C., Onwuteaka-Philispsen, B., & Willems, D. (2014). Should palliative care patients' hope be truthful, helpful or valuable? An interpretative synthesis of literature describing healthcare professionals' perspectives on hope of palliative care patients. Palliative Medicine, 28(1), 59-70. doi:10.1177/0269216313482172

RiegelI, F., CrossettiI, M. d., & Siqueira, D. S. (2018). Contributions of Jean Watson's theory to holistic critical thinking of nurses. Revista Brasileira de Enfermagem, 71(04). doi:10.1590/0034-7167-2017-0065