Joyce Travelbee

Human-to-human relationship model

A nurse does not only seek to
alleviate physical pain or
render physical care- she
ministers to the whole person.
The existence of suffering,
whether physical, mental or
spiritual is the proper concern
of the nurses.’
-Travelbee (1926-1973)
Biography
• Born in 1926.

• Psychiatric nurse, educator, and a writer

• 1956- completed her Bachelor of Science

degree in Nursing at the Louisiana State
University

• 1959- completed her Master’s Degree in

nursing at Yale University.

• 1973-she started a doctoral program in

Florida; however she didn’t finish it because
she died a year later at the age of 47 due to
a brief sickness.
Works
• Instructor in Psychiatric nursing at Depaul
Hospital Affiliate School, New Orleans while
working on her baccalaureate degree.

• Project Director at Hotel Dieu School of

Nursing in New Orleans and a director of
Graduate Education at Louisiana State
University School
Books
 Published in the year 1966 and 1971-
Interpersonal Aspects of Nursing.

 Intervention in Psychiatric Nursing:

Process in one-to-one relationship
HUMAN-TO-HUMAN
RELATIONSHIP MODEL
Purpose
 The nurses have the responsibility towards
the patient.

 Does not only focus on the physical defects,

difficulties or illness they experience but as
well as with their total being in emotion,
psychological and spiritual.
Purpose
 To provide quality health care to the
patients, they must:

• Good interaction and working relationship

• Gain their trust, respect and establish rapport.
• Assess the person as a whole not just by
mainly focusing in each problem that they
verbalize and complain.
Concepts
 Illness- classification and category. An
individual will react to illness depending on
culture and symptom burden.

 Depending on the impairment of

functioning as well as the health-care
provider’s responses, a human connection
that fosters understanding of the illness is
developed
Concepts
 Suffering- a feeling of displeasure which
ranges from simple transitory mental,
physical or spiritual discomfort to extreme
anguish- the malignant phase of dispairful
“not caring” and apathetic indifference.
Concepts
Hope- nurse will assist the ill patient to
experience hope in order to cope with the stress
of illness and suffering.

Future-oriented. Without hope, there is no

direction for lessening suffering.
Concepts
 Communication- to know ill person, to
ascertain and meet nursing needs and to
achieve the purpose of nursing.
Concepts
 Pain-is not observable. A unique experience.
Pain is a lonely experience that is difficult to
communicate fully to another individual.
Concepts
 Rapport- “ a process, a happening, an
experience between two persons. It may not
be a mutual affair at first, but the sharing of
the experience and participation in it grow as
each individual unfolds him or herself in the
interpersonal situation.”
STAGES OF HUMAN-TO-
HUMAN RELATIONSHIP
MODEL
Original encounter
 First impression by nurse of the sick person
and vice- versa.

 The nurse and patient see each other in

stereotyped or traditional roles
Emerging identities
 The nurse and patient perceive each other as
unique individual.

 The link of relationship begins to form

Empathy
 Two qualities that enhance the empathy
process:
• Similarities of experience
• Desire to understand another person

  The feeling that you understand and share 
another person's experiencesand emotions : 
 the ability to sharesomeone else's feelings
Sympathy
 The nurse wants to lessen the cause of the
patient’s suffering.

 The nurse should use a disciplined

intellectual approach together with
therapeutic use of self to make helpful
nursing action.
Rapport
 Nursing interventions that lessen the patient’s
suffering.

 Nurse and patient are relating as human

being to human being

 The patient shows trust and confidence in the

nurse
VIEW OF THE THEORY TO
THE FOUR METAPARADIGM
Person
 Human being

 Patient and nurse

Environment
 Not clearly defined

 She defined human conditions and life

experiences encountered by all men as
suffering, hope, pain and illness.
Health
 Subjective and Objective

 Subjective health- individually defined state

of well being in accord with self-appraisal of
physical, emotional and spiritual status.

 Objective health- absence of discernible

disease; disability of detect as measured by
physical examination and lab test.
Nursing
 “an interpersonal process whereby the
professional nurse practitioner assists an
individual, family or community to prevent or
cope with experience or illness and suffering,
and if necessary to find meaning in these
experiences.”
RELEVANCE TO THE THEORY
TO EDUCATION, RESEARCH,
AND PRACTICE
Education
 Teaches nurses to understand the meaning of
illness and suffering
Research
 This can provide the advance nurse an
impetus and scientific underpinnings to
further nursing theory, nursing research and
evidence-based practice.
Nursing practice
 Applicable to and has been used in hospice
movement, helping terminally ill individuals
and their families find meaning in suffering.

 psychiatric nursing as it deals more on the

feelings of the patient and as well as a
relationship between the nurse and patient.
ANALYSIS
Clarity
 Her theory is clear but are layered with
definitions but she also defined and clearly
outlines the steps to understand her concepts
of suffering, hope, illness, and the steps to
establish a rapport.
Simplicity
 If the Human-to-Human Relationship Theory
were merely to account for nurses and
patients being both human, and therefore
able to relate on an equal playing field,
Travelbee’s theory would appear simply
stated and parsimonious. This is not the case.
Multiple variables exist to define our being
human, thus separating us via the level of
distress and suffering. How humans define or
accept their distress and suffering is
multifaceted.
Generality
 Her theory has a potential for global use
within nursing and last for her empirical
precision, she didn’t show her proposition of
her findings in her research.
Empirical precesion
Travelbee’s language is existential and requires
an understanding of one’s perceptions of illness
and suffering to find meaning. The descriptive
structure of this theory is more concrete than its
process. Although Travelbee’s theory lacks
simplicity, her language and rhetoric can reach
researchers and practitioners in human science,
thus creating the foundation for generating
knowledge.
Derivable consequence
 Joyce Travelbee’s theory as a whole, it
encourages the nurse to take a step closer to
their patients. Being able to share freely or to
act what an efficient nurse is, will help the
patient for its faster recovery and to face
problems with hope. 
 In conclusion, the human-to-human
relationship provides a necessary connection
of therapeutically with other human beings.
The assumptions involves the patient who are
suffering and are in distress and it’s the
nurse’s duty to perceive and understand the
uniqueness of every ill patients and therefore
facilitate their meaning in suffering.
References
 Doona M E. Travelbee’s intervention in psychiatruc
nursing.2nd ed. Philadelphia, PA:F.A. Davis
COMPANY:1979
 Reed P G. An emerging paradigm for investigation of
spirituality in nursing. Research in nursing & health.
1992;15:349-357.
 Travelbee J.Human-to-human relationship
model.2013
 Pokorny M E.Nursing theorists of historical
significance. In: Alligood M R, Tomey A M,editors.
Nursing theorists and their works.7th ed. St. Louis,
MO: Mosby.;2010.pp. 54-68.