Newman pointed out that, “nurse client relationships often begin during periods of disruption, uncertainty, and unpredictability in patient’s lives” (Smith & Parker, 2015, p. 288). Page copied and pasted below. Statement highlighted below.
Explore what she means by this statement.
Then, reflect on a patient that you cared for that you could apply her theory to.
Provide details of the interaction and outcomes.
Posting should be 250 words
See below pg 288 content
Insights Occurring as Choice Points of Action Potential
The disruption of disease and other traumatic life events may be critical points in the expansion of consciousness. To explain this phenomenon, Newman (1994a, 1997b) drew on the work of Ilya Prigogine (1976), whose theory of dissipative structures asserts that a system fluctuates in an orderly manner until some disruption occurs, and the system moves in a seemingly random, chaotic, disorderly way until at some point it chooses to move into a higher level of organization (Newman, 1997b). Nurses see this all the time—the patient who is lost to his work and has no time for his family or himself, and then suddenly has a heart attack, which leaves him open to reflecting on how he has been using his energy. Insights gained through this reflection give rise to transformation and decisions about where energy will be spent; and his life becomes more creative, relational, and meaningful. Nurses also see this in people diagnosed with a terminal illness that causes them to reevaluate what is really important, attend to it, and then to state that for the first time they feel as though they are really living. The expansion of consciousness is an innate tendency of humans; however, some experiences and processes precipitate more rapid transformations. Nurse researchers working within the theory of HEC have clearly demonstrated how nurses can create a mutual partnership with their patients to reflect on their evolving pattern and the points of transformation.
Newman (1999) pointed out that nurse–client relationships often begin during periods of disruption, uncertainty, and unpredictability in patients’ lives. When patients are in a state of chaos because of disease, trauma, loss, or other causes, they often cannot see their past or future clearly. In the context of the nurse–patient partnership, which centers on the meaning the patient gives to the health predicament, insight for action arises, and it becomes clear to the patient how to get on with life (Jonsdottir et al., 2003, 2004; Litchfield, 1999; Newman, 1999). Litchfield (1993, 1999) explained this as experiencing an expanding present that connects to the past and creates an extended horizon of action potential for the future.
Endo (1998), in her work in Japan with women with cancer; Noveletsky-Rosenthal (1996), in her work in the United States with people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; and Pharris (2002), in her work with U.S. adolescents convicted of murder, found that it is when patients’ lives are in the greatest states of chaos, disorganization, and uncertainty that the HEC nursing partnership and pattern recognition process is perceived as most beneficial to patients.
