Community hub
Recent from talks
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
Jean Watson
Jean Watson, PhD, RN, AHN-BC, FAAN, LL (AAN) (born July 21, 1940) is an American nurse theorist and nursing professor who is best known for her theory of human caring. She is the author of numerous texts, including Nursing: The Philosophy and Science of Caring. Watson's research on caring has been incorporated into education and patient care at hundreds of nursing schools and healthcare facilities across the world.
Watson was born June 10, 1940, in Welch, West Virginia, the youngest of eight children. She attended high school in West Virginia. Watson knew she wanted to be a nurse at the age of 10 when she saw a friend of her older sister having a seizure. Her father died suddenly when she was 16 years old, something she claims made her particularly sensitive to people and their suffering for the rest of her life. She attended the Lewis Gale School of Nursing located in Roanoke, Virginia, where she graduated in 1961. Keen to go beyond the medical pathology she learned at nursing school, Watson completed both her Bachelors and master's degrees in Psychiatric Nursing at the University of Colorado at Boulder by 1966. In 1973, after earning her Ph.D. in Educational Psychology and Counseling, Watson begun her career teaching nursing courses at the CU College of Nursing. By 1979 she was the director of the university's doctoral program, and in 1986 she became the founder and director of its Center for Human Care. She served as dean of the College of Nursing at the University Health Sciences Center and president of the National League for Nursing.
In 1997, Watson sustained an injury that resulted in the loss of her left eye, then a year later, her husband of 37 years died by suicide. She claims the two incidents allowed her to understand her work on another level, saying: “It was this journey of losing my eye and losing my world as I had known it, including my beloved and devoted husband, who shortly thereafter, committed suicide –that I awakened and grasped my own writing".
In 2008 she founded the Watson Caring Science Institute, an NGO that aims to advance Watson's work on Caring Theory.
The theory of human caring, first developed by Watson in 1979, is patient care that involves a more holistic treatment for patients. As opposed to just using science to care for and heal patients, at the center of the theory of human caring is the idea that being more attentive and conscious during patient interactions allows for more effective and continuous care with a deeper personal connection. Watson's theory was influenced by several philosophers and thinkers including Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers, and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, each of whom were pioneers in creating the concept of transpersonal. Watson defines the idea of transpersonal as "an inter-subjective human-human relationship in which the person of the nurse affects and is affected by the person of the other. Both are fully present in the moment and feel a union with the other." The four major concepts in the science of caring are health, nursing, environment or society, and human being.
Over the course of her many academic works, Watson developed a set of 10 "caritive" processes to act as a guide for the core of nursing. The following are translation of the "carative" factors into clinical processes.
One of the USA's largest healthcare delivery systems, Kaiser Permanente, has used Watson's theory in California for many years. Stanford Health Care is also an affiliate of the Watson Caring Science Institute. In a 2023 interview, Watson stated that “I’ve been told that something like 300 hospitals use my work, so it’s had kind of a life of its own. But the thing is, it’s not my work – it’s nursing. I’m just giving a voice to nursing. I haven’t done anything original. I’ve just provided a language, and a philosophical and scientific framework that holds it together and makes it understandable”.
Watson was appointed as the dean emerita of nursing at the University of Colorado in the fall of 1983, taking the university's college of nursing into its “golden age”. During a 2023 interview, Watson revealed that she was at first reluctant to accept the position due to the amount of unrealized potential she saw in the college.
Hub AI
Jean Watson AI simulator
(@Jean Watson_simulator)
Jean Watson
Jean Watson, PhD, RN, AHN-BC, FAAN, LL (AAN) (born July 21, 1940) is an American nurse theorist and nursing professor who is best known for her theory of human caring. She is the author of numerous texts, including Nursing: The Philosophy and Science of Caring. Watson's research on caring has been incorporated into education and patient care at hundreds of nursing schools and healthcare facilities across the world.
Watson was born June 10, 1940, in Welch, West Virginia, the youngest of eight children. She attended high school in West Virginia. Watson knew she wanted to be a nurse at the age of 10 when she saw a friend of her older sister having a seizure. Her father died suddenly when she was 16 years old, something she claims made her particularly sensitive to people and their suffering for the rest of her life. She attended the Lewis Gale School of Nursing located in Roanoke, Virginia, where she graduated in 1961. Keen to go beyond the medical pathology she learned at nursing school, Watson completed both her Bachelors and master's degrees in Psychiatric Nursing at the University of Colorado at Boulder by 1966. In 1973, after earning her Ph.D. in Educational Psychology and Counseling, Watson begun her career teaching nursing courses at the CU College of Nursing. By 1979 she was the director of the university's doctoral program, and in 1986 she became the founder and director of its Center for Human Care. She served as dean of the College of Nursing at the University Health Sciences Center and president of the National League for Nursing.
In 1997, Watson sustained an injury that resulted in the loss of her left eye, then a year later, her husband of 37 years died by suicide. She claims the two incidents allowed her to understand her work on another level, saying: “It was this journey of losing my eye and losing my world as I had known it, including my beloved and devoted husband, who shortly thereafter, committed suicide –that I awakened and grasped my own writing".
In 2008 she founded the Watson Caring Science Institute, an NGO that aims to advance Watson's work on Caring Theory.
The theory of human caring, first developed by Watson in 1979, is patient care that involves a more holistic treatment for patients. As opposed to just using science to care for and heal patients, at the center of the theory of human caring is the idea that being more attentive and conscious during patient interactions allows for more effective and continuous care with a deeper personal connection. Watson's theory was influenced by several philosophers and thinkers including Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers, and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, each of whom were pioneers in creating the concept of transpersonal. Watson defines the idea of transpersonal as "an inter-subjective human-human relationship in which the person of the nurse affects and is affected by the person of the other. Both are fully present in the moment and feel a union with the other." The four major concepts in the science of caring are health, nursing, environment or society, and human being.
Over the course of her many academic works, Watson developed a set of 10 "caritive" processes to act as a guide for the core of nursing. The following are translation of the "carative" factors into clinical processes.
One of the USA's largest healthcare delivery systems, Kaiser Permanente, has used Watson's theory in California for many years. Stanford Health Care is also an affiliate of the Watson Caring Science Institute. In a 2023 interview, Watson stated that “I’ve been told that something like 300 hospitals use my work, so it’s had kind of a life of its own. But the thing is, it’s not my work – it’s nursing. I’m just giving a voice to nursing. I haven’t done anything original. I’ve just provided a language, and a philosophical and scientific framework that holds it together and makes it understandable”.
Watson was appointed as the dean emerita of nursing at the University of Colorado in the fall of 1983, taking the university's college of nursing into its “golden age”. During a 2023 interview, Watson revealed that she was at first reluctant to accept the position due to the amount of unrealized potential she saw in the college.