Rosemarie Rizzo Parse created the Human Becoming Theory of Nursing, which guides nurses to focus on quality of life from each person’s own perspective as the goal of nursing. It presents an alternative to most of the other theories of nursing, which take a bio-medical or bio-psycho-social-spiritual approach.
It was first published in 1981 as the “Man-living-health” theory, and in 1992 the name was changed to “the Human Becoming Theory.” It was developed as a human science nursing theory, and the assumptions underpinning the theory come from the works of Heidegger, Sartre, and Merleau-Ponty, as well as Martha Rogers, who was a pioneer American nursing theorist.
The Human Becoming Theory is a combination of biological, psychological, sociological, and spiritual factors, and states that a person is a unitary being in continuous interaction with his or her environment. It is centered around three themes: meaning, rhythmicity, and transcendence.
The theme of meaning says that Human Becoming is choosing personal meaning in situations, and that a person’s reality is given meaning through experiences he or she lives in the environment. Rhythmicity explains that Human Becoming is cocreating rhythmical patterns of relating with the universe, and that a person and the environment cocreate in rhythmical patterns. Transcendence says that Human Becoming refers to reaching beyond the limits a person sets, and that a person is constantly transforming him or herself.
In terms of nursing, the Human Becoming Theory explains that a person is more than the sum of the parts, the environment and the person are inseparable, and that nursing is a human science and art that uses an abstract body of knowledge to help people. The theory allows nurses to create a stronger nurse-patient relationship because the nurse is not focused on “fixing” problems, but is viewing the patient as a whole person living experiences through his or her environment.
The Human Becoming Theory of Nursing is a model that focuses on the quality of life of the patient and sees the patient not as different aspects of a whole, but as a person. This is different than many other nursing theories, and allows nurses to do what so many of them go into the nursing field to help people.