For the author of this book, disease is not an "enemy" that strikes a "victim." Rather, health and disease comprise a unitary whole of individual and environment. Health as Expanding Consciousness is an inspiration to those seeking a full experience of personal health.

Jean Watson's first edition of Nursing, now considered a classic, introduced the science of human caring and quickly became one of the most widely used and respected sources of conceptual models for nursing. This completely new edition offers a contemporary update and the most current perspectives on the evolution of the original philosophy and science of caring from the field's founding scholar. A core concept for nurses and the professional and non-professional people they interact with, "care" is one of the (...) field's least understood terms, enshrouded in conflicting expectations and meanings. Although its usages vary among cultures, caring is universal and timeless at the human level, transcending societies, religions, belief systems, and geographic boundaries, moving from Self to Other to community and beyond, affecting all of life. This new edition reflects on the universal effects of caring and connects caring with love as the primordial moral basis both for the philosophy and science of caring practices and for healing itself. It introduces Caritas Processes, offers centering and mediation exercises on an included audio CD, and provides other energetic and reflective models to assist students and practitioners in cultivating a new level of Caritas Nursing in their work and world. (shrink)

First published in 1997, this volume responds to the rapidly developing fields of nursing and health care fields and explores the meaning of nursing and the nurse-patient relationship through looking at the effects of a nurse's personality, approach and understanding as being therapeutic for the patient's experience. Steven J. Ersser explores areas including the concept of nursing as therapy, the presence of nurses and the effect of nursing on patient outcome. His book is part of a new series of monographs (...) offering up-to-date reports of recently completed research projects in the fields of nursing and health care. The aim of the series is to report studies that have relevance to contemporary nursing and health care practice. It will include reports of research into aspects of clinical nursing care, management and education. This book, along with the series, will be of interest to all nurses and health care workers, researchers, managers and educators in the field. (shrink)