CHAPTER

8

79

Dorothy Johnson

PART ONE: Dorothy Johnson’s

Behavioral System Model

and Its Applications

Introducing the Theorist

Introducing the Theory

Applications

Summary

References

Introducing the Theorist

Dorothy Johnson’s earliest publications pertained
to what knowledge base nurses needed for nursing
care (Johnson, 1959, 1961). Throughout her career,
Johnson stressed that nursing had a unique, inde-
pendent contribution to health care that was dis-
tinct from “delegated medical care.” Johnson was
one of the first “grand theorists” to present her

views as a conceptual model. Her model was the

first to provide both a guide to understanding and

a guide to action. These two ideas—understanding

seen first as a holistic, behavioral system process

mediated by a complex framework and second as

an active process of encounter and response—are

central to the work of other theorists who followed

her lead and developed conceptual models for

nursing practice.

Bonnie Holaday