Dr. Jean Watson is a renowned nursing theorist known for developing the Theory of Human Caring. She received her PhD in Educational Psychology and Counseling from the University of Colorado. Her theory emphasizes caring as the central focus of nursing and identifies 10 Carative Factors that help nurses establish caring relationships with patients. These factors include developing a helping-trust relationship, being present and supportive of expressions of positive and negative feelings, and creatively problem-solving. Watson's theory views humans holistically and aims to help patients find meaning and inner harmony through nursing care.

1. Dr. Jean Watson
The Power of Caring:
The Power to Make a Difference

2. Dr. Jean Watson
Education
at a glance…
* Dr. Watson was born and raised in a small town in the
Appalachian Mountains of West Virginia in the 1940’s
1958-61 R.N. Diploma in Nursing
Lewis-Gale School of Nursing
1962-64 B.S. in Nursing
University of Colorado
1964-66 M.S. in Psychiatric Mental-Health Nursing;
Minor Psychology
University of Colorado
1969-70 Graduate Work: Social and Clinical Psychology
University of Colorado,
1969-73 Ph.D. in Educational Psychology and
Counseling
University of Colorado

3. Dr. Jean Watson
at a glance…
Accomplishments
Recipient of several awards and honours including:
• International Kellogg Fellowship in Australia
• Fulbright Research Award in Sweden
• Six Honorary Doctoral Degrees
Including 3 International Honorary Doctorates (Sweden, UK, Canada)
• 1993 National League for Nursing Martha E. Rogers Award
Recognizes a nurse scholar who has made significant
contributions to nursing knowledge that advances the science of caring in
nursing and health sciences
• Distinguished Nurse Scholar, recognized by New York
University
• Norman Cousins Award in 1999,
Recognition for her commitment to developing; maintaining and
exemplifying relationship-centered care practices
• Founder of the Centre for Human Caring in Colorado
• Is a Fellow at the American Academy of Nursing

4. Dr. Jean Watson
Influences
at a glance…
• Eastern Philosophy: focuses on a holistic approach,
looking at the body as a whole unit, not a sum of parts
“is based on a metaphysical, spiritual-existential
and phenomenological orientation.”
- Fawcett, 1993
This links to earlier nursing theorists, including:
Nightingale, Leininger, Paterson & Zderad
Psychology theorists who influenced her theory of
caring:
Hans Selye, Richard Lazarus and Carl Rogers

5. “The goal of nursing is to help a person
gain a higher degree of harmony
with the mind, body and soul.”
- Jean Watson, Nursing as Human Science and Human Care
Dr. Jean Watson’s theory of caring …

6. Dr. Jean Watson’s
theory
Watson’s Concern
• To make known:
• Inner healing process
• Experiencing the person
Three major elements of her theory:
• Ten Carative Factors
• The Caring Occasion / The Caring Moment
• Transpersonal Caring

7. Dr. Jean Watson’s
theory
Assumptions about Caring
• Effective caring promotes health and individual and family
growth
• Caring responses accept a person as is and looks beyond to
what that person may become
• A caring environment offers the development of potential
• Caring is as equally important as curing
• The practice of caring is central to nursing

8. The 10
Carative
Factors

9. Dr. Jean Watson’s
Carative Factors
theory
•Caritas comes from the Latin word meaning to cherish,
•Invites nurse to explore the intersection between
T

10. NURSING
PARADIGM

11. PERSON
Watson views the human as a valued person in
and of himself or herself … in general,
philosophical view of a person as a fully
functional integrated self … greater than, and
different from, the sum of his or her parts’.

12. HEALTH
Health refers to unity and harmony within the mind,
body and soul.
Health is also associated with the degree of
congruence between the self as perceived and the
self as experienced.
Watson noted that illness can result from a troubled
inner soul, and illness can lead to disease, but the
two concepts do not fall on a continuum and can
exist apart from one another

13. ENVIRONMENT
Watson made use of her 8th carative factor to define
environment. ‘Attending to supportive, protective
and/or corrective mental, physical, societal and
spiritual environments’.
In recent discussions, environment is considered in
the context of a human-environment field. This field
forms an ‘unbroken wholeness and connectedness of
all (subject-object-person-environment-nature-
universe-all living things)’.

14. NURSING
Nursing defined as a verb is carried out through
human care and caring which Watson views as the
moral ideal of nursing and consists of transpersonal
human-to-human attempts to protect, enhance, and
preserve humanity by helping a person find meaning in
illness, suffering, pain and existence; to help another
gain self-knowledge, control and self-healing wherein a
sense of inner harmony is restored regardless of the
external circumstances.

15. “Everytime you
smile at
someone, it is
an action of
love, a gift to
that person, a
beautiful
thing”.

16. “Maybe this one moment, with this
one person, is the very reason
we’re here on Earth at this time.”
- Jean Watson, The Caring Moment