heory of Nursing. In addition to a brief review of Watson's theory, the paper also discusses and evaluates Watson's theory as opposed to other nursing theories, and indicates possible applications of the theory in any or several nursing areas.
Analysis of several chapters of Watson's 1985 book reveals that the main concepts of the Theory of Human Caring are transpersonal caring and carative factors. Transpersonal caring is defined as "human-to-human connectedness...[whereby] each is touched by the human center of the other" (Watson, 1989a, p. 131). The concept has four components or dimensions: self, phenomenal field, actual caring occasion of the patient and the nurse, and intersubjectivity.
Watson (1985) identified various forms of the self: the self as it is, the ideal self that the person would like to be, and the spiritual self, which is synonymous with the geist or soul or essence of the person and which is the highest sense of self. Quoting Rogers (1959, p. 200), she defined the self:
the organized consistent conceptual gestalt composed of perceptions of the characteristics of the "I" or "me" and the perceptions of the relationships of the "I" or "me" to others and to various aspects of life, together with the values attached to those perceptions. It is a fluid and changing gestalt, a process, but at any moment a specific entity (p. 55).
The phenomenal field is made up of the "totality of human experience (one's being-in-the-world). [It] is the individual's frame of reference that can be known only to the person" (Watson, 1985, p. 55). Watson explained that the phenomenal field, which is the person's subjective reality, determines perceptions and responses in given situations in conjunction with the objective conditions or external reality.
The actual caring occasion of the patient and the nurse is the event at which the caregiver and the recipient of care come together. Elaborating, Watson (1985) ...