The Interdependent Relationship Between Philosophical and Practical Knowing in Rogers' Science of Unitary Human Beings.

Two dominant discourses in contemporary nursing theory and knowledge development have evolved over the past few decades, in part by unitary science views and caring theories. Rogers' science of unitary human beings (SUHB) represents the unitary directions in nursing. Caring theories and related caring science (CS) scholarship represent the other. These two contemporary initiatives have generated two parallel, often controversial, seemingly separate and unrelated, trees of knowledge for nursing science. This paper explores the evolution of CS and its intersection with SUHB that have emerged in contemporary nursing literature. We present a case for integration, convergence, and creative synthesis of CS with SUHB. A trans-theoretical, trans-disciplinary context emerges, allowing nursing to sustain its caring ethic and ontology, within a unitary science. The authors critique and review the seminal, critical issues that have separated contemporary knowledge developments in CS and SUHB. Foundational issues of CS, and Watson's theory of transpersonal caring science (TCS), as a specific exemplar, are analysed, alongside parallel themes in SUHB. By examining hidden ethical-ontological and paradigmatic commonalities, trans-theoretical themes and connections are explored and revealed between TCS and SUHB. Through a creative synthesis of TCS and SUHB we explicate a distinct unitary view of human with a relational caring ontology and ethic that informs nursing as well as other sciences. The result: is a trans-theoretical, trans-disciplinary view for nursing knowledge development. Nursing's history has been to examine theoretical differences rather than commonalities. This trans-theoretical position moves nursing toward theoretical integration and creative synthesis, vs. separation, away from the 'Balkanization' of different theories. This initiative still maintains the integrity of different theories, while facilitating and inviting a new discourse for nursing science. The result: Unitary Caring Science that evokes both science and spirit.

The purpose of this article is to clarify the ambiguity surrounding the concept of caring through situating it within one conceptual system, the Science of Unitary Human Beings. An analysis of the dialogue on caring in nursing is presented. A process of concept clarification was developed to examine points of congruence between existing literature on caring and theoretical niches expressing similar meanings in the Science of Unitary Human Beings. The process resulted in the synthesis of five constitutive meanings of caring in the Science of Unitary Human Beings: manifesting intentions, appreciating pattern, attuning to dynamic flow, experiencing the infinite, and inviting creative emergence. Narratives were developed to ground the abstract meanings in concrete human experience.

BACKGROUND:Workers’ health and well-being are topics on the rise within occupational research. Rogers’ science of unitary human beings can potentially contribute to increased knowledge in the area. However, no previous review has investigated how the theory has been used in relation to workers in working life.OBJECTIVE:The aim of this scoping review was to provide an overview of studies that have used Rogers’ science of unitary human beings to study workers health and well-being in working life.METHODS:A literature search was conducted in CINAHL and PubMed, and other relevant sources in May-June 2022.RESULTS:The results showed that there seems to be a lack of use of Rogers’ science of unitary human beings regarding workers health and well-being in working life. The overarching theme was: Well-being as an essential phenomenon in working life in all dimensions of existing.CONCLUSION:The theory has potential to contribute more to research regarding workers’ health and well-being in working life.

Rogers' Science of Unitary Human Beings (SUHB) and several theories that emanate from Rogers' work contain foundational concepts that may lend themselves toward nursing actions to address important social justice mandates, to advocate and to act for equity, and to uproot systems of oppression and racism in nursing. However, at the same time, theoretical concepts such as power arising from ascendant theories of SUHB are often used with little to no critical reflection for past and present-day histories of racism and power inequities in nursing and in society writ large. Using concepts related to SUHB such as integrality, turbulence, power, and patterning, we critically explore the potential of developing anti-racism reflections and actions through 3 theories: Barrett's Knowing Participation in Change; Butcher's Kaleidoscoping in Life's Turbulence; and Smith's Turbulence-Ease in the Rhythmic Flow of Patterning. We acknowledge that SUHB was/is largely developed within a framework of whiteness by scholars who were/are working from academic positions and social identities of societal safety and privilege. This requires nurses to reflect on how that history shapes SUHB. We also acknowledge the urgent need for ongoing anti-racism and justice work by nurses. As a call to action, we suggest a start by critically building upon existing theoretical foundations in SUHB to develop a more explicit anti-racist theorizing-praxis in nursing for the wellbecoming of humans and nonhumans alike.

Three key philosophical issues raised by the science of unitary human beings are analyzed: space and time; causality; and process. Clarification of Rogers' positions in relation to these issues is provided, and areas in need of further development are identified. These issues are of vital significance in the world view of the science of unitary human beings. Scholarly development of the substantive metaphysical implications of the model is invited.

The purpose of this article is to reflect on the state of Martha E. Rogers' science of unitary human beings as it has evolved over the past 40 years, with particular attention to the decade since her death. Although Rogers never updated her 1970 book, revised concepts and principles of homeodynamics, as reported in other publications, are discussed. In more than a decade since Rogers' death, nurse scientists have been prolific in explicating the science in scholarly research and writing. An example of theories derived from the science, as well as concepts under study, and research methods are identified. Twenty-first century thoughts on the science of unitary human beings, as expressed by three founders of the Society of Rogerian Scholars, are highlighted from an interview conducted by Fawcett. Rogers suggested that the development of a science of unitary human beings is a never ending process.

What is time? The science of unitary human beings describes pandimensional reality as a domain without spatial or temporal attributes. As part of this pandimensional reality, unitary human beings experience time as passing, and involving the past, present, and future. The theory of accelerating evolution describes changes in human and environmental energy fields that are always accelerating and are manifested as differences in the experience of time as being slow, fast, and still. Time, be it measured or experienced, has no meaning in and of itself, but can only be understood in terms of the ever-evolving life process.

Although two of the primary risk factors for being bullied include "male" and "middle school" status, a gap in knowledge exists of middle school boys' personal accounts and meanings of being bullied and their healing. Giorgi's descriptive phenomenological approach using open-ended semi-structured individual interviews was used to collect and analyze evidence related to middle school boys' lived experiences of being bullied and healing. Roger's Science of Unitary Human Beings (SUHB) guided interpretation of the healing patterns. Three patterns of healing were identified in boys' experiences: meaning-making, self-transcendence, and nonviolently claiming personal power. Evidence of healing patterns exists in middle school boys' experiences of being bullied, offering a foundation for further research and practice focused on healing. When working with middle school boys who have been bullied, nurses need to ask about their experiences and promote their healing.

The purpose of this paper is to present an oncology case study focusing on a woman's journey through breast cancer treatment and survivorship and a nurse's journey to provide wholistic care using standardized nursing languages and Rogers's Science of Unitary Human Beings (SUHB). Published literature, experience, and expertise of the author were used as data sources. The data were clustered to formulate oncology nursing care based on the standardized nursing languages of NANDA International, Nursing Outcomes Classification, and Nursing Interventions Classification (NNN) from the theoretical foundation of Rogers's SUHB. The use of Rogers's SUHB, NNN, and the extant literature provided a theoretical, evidence-based, and practical approach to providing holistic care for a woman journeying through breast cancer treatment and survivorship. Nurses can use standardized nursing languages and Rogers's SUHB to facilitate personal well-being and quality of life for breast cancer survivors.

Nursing has evolved from a vocation governed by traditions into an academic and practice-oriented profession. As an existential discipline, nursing will continue to change as knowledge advances. The Science of Unitary Human Beings as postulated by Martha E. Rogers, Sc.D., offers the potential for nursing to develop theories and techniques that are appropriate for a different model of nuring in a rapidly changing world. Because of the high level of abstraction of the concepts and principles of the Rogerian Conceptual System, phenomena central to nursing need to be re-interpreted according to its world-view. In this paper, several variables involved in healing are described from a three-dimensional framework and re-interpreted four-dimensionally, as an illustration of a process for developing practice strategies for the future consistent with the Science of Unitary Human Beings.

Martha E. Rogers (1970, 1990, 1992) was one of the first to maintain that nursing is both a science and an art, a learned profession based on an organized body of nursing-specific knowledge. Indeed, as early as 1963, she wrote, “Instruction in the theoretical basis of nursing practice is the hard core of baccalaureate education in nursing…professional nursing services cannot be provided unless the theoretical base is present” (1963, p. 61). Rogers saw the unique focus of nursing as irreducible human beings and environment, both identified as energy fields, with the purpose of nursing as promoting well-being and health throughout the life process, including dying. Nurses help people participate knowingly in the life process, actualizing potentials deemed commensurate with personal wellbeing. Together, nurses and clients participate mutually and knowledgeably to optimize potentials. Building on these assumptions, Elizabeth E. A. M. Barrett (1988, 2010, 2015) derived her theory of power as knowing participation in change and a tool to measure it while working with Rogers as a student in the doctoral program at New York University. The author provides a brief overview of both Rogers’ Science of Unitary Human Beings and Barrett’s theory of power as knowing participation in change and discusses their relevance to practice.

The purpose of this column is to review the published studies conducted within Rogers' science of unitary human beings from 2004 to 2007. The findings from a critical review of 24 research studies (15 quantitative and 9 qualitative) are presented.

Narrating or storytelling is a fundamental practice for human survival and a means for finding meaning in experiences and for enhancing self-understanding. The use of story has been present in nursing since its origins. Biographical narrative has rarely been used as a research method in nursing, and there are no examples conceptualizing biographical narrative research methods within a unitary science perspective. The purpose of this paper is to describe one specific narrative methodological approach-the biographical narrative research method-and to link the method to the science of unitary human beings as a means of creating a unitary understanding of the storied nature of human-health experiences.

This article explicates current perspectives on Rogers' science of unitary human beings. Possibilities for nursing in the 21st century are elaborated upon. Attention is called to the increasingly rapid social changes which will have an impact on nursing science.

Natural science and human science are identified as the bases of most nursing theories and research programs. Natural science has been disclaimed by Martha Rogers as the philosophy of science that undergirds her work. The question remains, is the science of unitary human beings an interpretive human science? The author explores the works of Rogers through a dialectic with two human scientists' works. Wilhelm Dilthey's works represent the founding or traditional view, and Jurgen Habermas' works represent a contemporary, reconstructionist view. The ways Rogerian thought contributes to human studies but is distinct from traditional and reconstructionist human sciences are illuminated.