N E W M A N ’ S T H E O R Y O F H E A LT H

A S E X PA N D I N G C O N S C I O U S N E S S

MANUCDOC, JOANNA E .
MARI GSA, SHARLY MAE R.
SURATOS, JASMINE LAURA L.

BSN 1F
 ABOUT THE THEORIST

MARGARET A. NEWMAN
(OCTOBER 10, 1933 - DECEMBER 18, 2018)

• BORN IN MEMPHIS,
TENNESSEE
• LIVING LEGEND OF THE
ACADEMY

KNOWN AS:
• AMERICAN NURSE
• UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR
• NURSING THEORIST
 ABOUT THE THEORIST

E D U C AT I O N A L B A C K G R O U N D

1950 1962 1964

Decided to be a Bachelor's Degree Master’s Degree

nurse in Nursing in Medical-
Surgical Nursing
1971

Doctorate and
rehabilitation nursing
 ABOUT THE THEORIST

CAREER

Professor at the University of 1978: Became a nurse

Minnesota theorist

Named as the Living Legend

1996: Retired
THEORETICAL SOURCES OF THE THEORY

Martha Rogers The Science of Unitary Human Beings

Hegel Fusion of Opposites

The Concept of the Evolution of

Itzhak Bentov
Consciousness

Arthur Young The Theory of Process

THEORETICAL SOURCES OF THE THEORY

David Bohm Theory of Implicate

Moss The I that is We

Prigogine Theory of Dissipative Structure

 MAJOR CONCEPTS & DEFINITIONS

HE ALT H
• Health is the “pattern of the whole” of a person and includes disease as a
manifestation of the pattern of the whole, based on the premise that life is an ongoing
process of expanding consciousness.
• It is regarded as the evolving pattern of the person and environment.
• Health that is relational and is “patterned, emergent, unpredictable, unitary, intuitive,
and innovative,” rather than a traditional linear view that is “causal, predictive,
dichotomous, rational, and controlling”.
• Health and the evolving pattern of consciousness are the same.
 MAJOR CONCEPTS & DEFINITIONS
PAT TE RN
• Pattern is information that depicts the whole and understanding of the meaning of all
of the relationships at once.
• Pattern is what identifies an individual as a particular person.
• Characteristics of pattern include movement, diversity, and rhythm.
• According to Newman, “Whatever manifests itself in a person’s life is the
explication of the underlying implicate pattern . . . the phenomenon we call health is
the manifestation of that evolving pattern”.
• Pattern recognition is the “insight or recognition of a principle, realization of a truth,
or reconciliation of a duality” and is “key to the process of evolving to a higher level
of consciousness”.
 MAJOR CONCEPTS & DEFINITIONS
PAT TE RN

• Newman described a "paradigm shift" in the field of health care: the shift from
treatment of disease symptoms to a search for patterns and the meaning of those
patterns.
• Individual life patterns move “through peaks and troughs, variations in order-
disorder that are meaningful for the person”.
 MAJOR CONCEPTS & DEFINITIONS

CONSCIOUSNESS

• Consciousness is both the informational capacity of the system and the ability of the
system to interact with its environment.
• Consciousness includes not only the cognitive affective awareness, but also the
“interconnectedness of the entire living system which includes physicochemical
maintenance and growth processes as well as the immune system”.
 MAJOR CONCEPTS & DEFINITIONS

CONSCIOUSNESS
Three Correlates of Consciousness:

• TIME
• MOVEMENT
• SPACE

Newman emphasizes the importance of examining movement-space-time together as

dimensions of emerging patterns of consciousness rather than as separate concepts of
the theory.
 MAJOR ASSUMPTIONS OF THE THEORY
• Health encompasses conditions heretofore described as illness or, in medical terms
pathology . . .
• These “pathological” conditions can be considered a manifestation of the total
pattern of the individual . . .
• The pattern of the individual that eventually manifests itself as pathology is primary
and exists prior to structural or functional changes . . .
• Removal of the pathology in itself will not change the pattern of the individual . . .
• If becoming “ill” is the only way an individual’s pattern can manifest itself then that
is health for that person . . .
• Health is an expansion of consciousness . . .
 MAJOR ASSUMPTIONS OF THE THEORY

• Newman’s implicit assumptions about human nature include being unitary, an open
system, in continuous interconnectedness with the open system of the universe, and
continuously engaged in an evolving pattern of the whole.
 THEORETICAL ASSERTION
• Early writings of Newman’s theory focused heavily on the concepts of movement,
space, time and consciousness.
• One proposition was that there was a complimentary relationship between time and
space.
• According to Newman, movement is a “means whereby space and time become a
reality”.
• Movement was also referred to as a “reflection of consciousness”.
• The concept of time is seen as a function of movement.
• Time is also conceptualized as a measure of consciousness.
 THEORETICAL ASSERTION
• Space, time, and movement later became linked with Newman’s assertion that the
intersection of movement-space-time represented the person as a center of
consciousness.
• Newman also emphasized that the crucial task of nursing is to be able to see the
concepts of movement-space-time in relation to each other, and consider them all at
once, recognizing patterns of evolving consciousness.
• The theory asserts that every person in every situation, no matter how disordered and
hopeless it may seem, is part of the universal process of expanding consciousness – a
process of becoming more of oneself, of finding greater meaning in life, and of
reaching new dimensions of connectedness with other people and the world.
 N U R S I N G M E TA PA R A D I G M
PERSON
• The human is unitary, that is cannot be divided into
parts, and is inseparable from the larger unitary field
• Persons as individuals, and human beings as a species
are identified by their patterns of consciousness
• The person does not possess consciousness-the person
is consciousness
• Persons are “centers of consciousness” within an
overall pattern of expanding consciousness”
• The definition of person has also been expanded to
include family and community.
 N U R S I N G M E TA PA R A D I G M

ENVIRONMENT

• Environment is described as a “universe of

open systems”.

H E A LT H
• Health is the “pattern of the whole” of a person.
• Health and illness are synthesized as health -
the fusion on one state of being (disease) with
its opposite (non-disease) results in what can be
regarded as health.
 N U R S I N G M E TA PA R A D I G M

NURSI NG

• Nursing is "caring in the human health

experience".
• Nursing is seen as a partnership between
the nurse and client, with both grow in
the "sense of higher levels of
consciousness".
 USE OF EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE
“ NURSE E DUCATORS E XAMINE T HE APPLI CABI L I TY
O F HE ALTH AS E XPANDING CONS CIOUSNES S TH EO RY:
A Q UALITATIVE REVI EW STUDY”
JIHAD JAWAD KADHIM, MANSOUR ABDULLAH FALAH, IMAN QASIM KTEO AL-
(2020)
Objective: The present review study is aimed to provide inside comprehension on the
applicability and feasibility of HEC from nurse educator perspectives based on review
of qualitative studies.

Method: The authors of reviewed studies used the hermeneutic-dialectic approaches

as a tool for the research study.
 USE OF EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE

Result: This study shows how successfully the theory was applied to coronary heart
disease patients, women with multiple sclerosis or rheumatoid arthritis, and pain
during perioperative period. Thus, the theory is effective in all scenarios and provides
the nurse ways to understand patients from varied backgrounds. The nurses played an
important role by help the patients to recognize their pattern and move to a higher level
of consciousness. The nurse-patient relationship built on mutual trust and respect,
which helped both nurses and clients to interact effectively in order to identify their
pattern.
Conclusion: Newman’s theory can be applied in every nursing setting in both
short and long-term interaction with the patient.
 ANALYSIS

CLARITY SIMPLICITY GENERALITY

• Semantic clarity is • The deeper meaning of • The concepts in Newman's
the theory of health as theory are broad in scope
evident in the
because they all relate to
definitions, expanding consciousness health; The theory has been
descriptions, and is complex. applied in many cultures;
dimensions of the • The theory as a whole applicable across the spectrum
must be understood rather of nursing care situations.
concepts of the theory.
• Application of the theory is
than isolating the universal in nature.
concepts. • The broad scope provides a
focus for middle-range theory.
 ANALYSIS
ACCESSIBILITY
• Aspects of the theory were tested with • The focus of Newman's theory of health as
the traditional scientific mode.
• Quantitative methods are inadequate to
capture the dynamic, changing nature of
this theory. A hermeneutic dialectic
approach was developed and has been
used extensively full of explication of its
meaning and application.
IMPORTANCE
expanding consciousness provides an
evolving guide for all health-related
discipline.
• In the quest for understanding the
phenomenon of health, this unique view of
health challenges nurses to make a
difference in nursing practice by the
application of this theory.
 REFERENCES
Alligood, M. (2009). Nursing Theories and Their Work (8th ed.).
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ac_zBjrQRqhOYUJzfDf8mFbfiUD-Ba_Y/view?
fbclid=IwAR3P963VbeD4xEFjkqSLhvm_o9LZKevLDywqHROOTUIlsb_YvxAc_w7IZXc.

Blogspot. (2022, October 20). Retrieved October 20, 2022, from Blogspot.com website:
http://nursingtheories.blogspot.com/2009/07/margaret-newman-rn-phd-faan.html

Nurse Educators Examine the Applicability of Health as Expanding Consciousness Theory: A

Qualitative Review Study. (2020). Indian Journal of Forensic Medicine & Toxicology.
https://doi.org/10.37506/ijfmt.v14i4.12778

Necor, J. A. (2014). Margaret Newman’s Health As Expanding Consciousness. Retrieved October 20,
2022, from Slideshare.net website: https://www.slideshare.net/JosephineAnnNecor/06-margaret-
newmans-health-as-expanding-consciousness?fbclid=IwAR3tsmIYB7WMDry5sOpzgR3IJUxofHxr-
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