sclerosis (ALS), a degenerative neurological disease
that progressively diminishes the movement of all
muscles except those of the eyes. Caring for her
mother was transformative for Margaret Newman.
This experience provided her with two profound
realizations: that simply having a disease does not
make you unhealthy, and that time, movement, and
space are in some way interrelated with health,
which can be manifested by increased connected-
ness and quality of relationships. The restrictions of
movement that Margaret Newman’s mother expe-
rienced due to the ALS altered her experience of
time, space, and consciousness. In caring for her
physically immobilized mother, Newman experi-
enced similar alterations in movement, space, time,
and consciousness (Newman, 1997c). In the midst
of this terminal disease, both mother and daughter
experienced a greater sense of connectedness and
increased insight into the meaning of their experi-
ence and into the meaning of health.
Later, when Newman decided to pursue doc-
toral studies in nursing, she was drawn to New
York University (NYU), where she would be able
to study with Martha Rogers, whose Science of
Unitary Human Beings theory resonated with
Newman’s conceptualizations of nursing and
health (Newman, 1997b). In her doctoral work at
NYU, Newman (1982, 1987) began studying move-
ment, time, and space as parameters of health, but
she did so out of a logical positivist scientific para-
digm. She designed an experimental study that ma-
nipulated participants’ movement and then
measured their perception of time. Her results
showed a changing perception of time across the
life span, with subjective time (as compared to ob-
jective time) increasing with age. Although her re-
sults seemed to support what she later would term
“health as expanding consciousness,” at that time
she felt they did little to inform or shape nursing
practice (Newman, 1997a).
Introducing the Theory
Newman’s theory is a composite of her early influ-
ences and life and practice experiences.
EARLY INFLUENCES AND
DEBUT OF THEORY
Newman’s paradigmatic transformation occurred
as she delved into the works of Martha Rogers and
Itzhak Bentov, while at the same time reflecting on
her own personal experience (Newman, 1997b).
Several of Martha Rogers’ assumptions became
central in enriching Margaret Newman’s theoretical
perspective (Newman, 1997b). First and foremost,
Rogers saw health and illness not as two separate
realities, but rather as a unitary process. This was
congruent with Margaret Newman’s earlier experi-
ence with her mother and with her patients. On a
very deep level, Newman knew that people can ex-
perience health even when they are physically or
mentally ill. Health is not the opposite of illness,
but rather health and illness are both manifesta-
tions of a greater whole. One can be very healthy in
the midst of a terminal illness.
Second, Rogers argued that all of reality is a uni-
tary whole and that each human being exhibits a
unique pattern. Rogers (1970) saw energy fields to
be the fundamental unit of all that is living and
nonliving, and she posited that there is interpene-
tration between the fields of person, family, and en-
vironment. Person, family, and environment are
not separate entities, but rather are an intercon-
nected, unitary whole. In defining field,Rogers
wrote: “Field is a unifying concept. Energy signifies
the dynamic nature of the field. A field is in contin-
uous motion and is infinite” (Rogers, 1990, p. 29).Rogers defined the unitary human being
as “[a]n irreducible, indivisible, pandimen-
sional energy field identified by pattern
and manifesting characteristics that are
specific to the whole and which cannot be
predicted from knowledge of the parts.”Rogers defined the unitary human beingas “[a]n
irreducible, indivisible, pandimensional energy
field identified by pattern and manifesting charac-
teristics that are specific to the whole and which
cannot be predicted from knowledge of the parts”
(Rogers, 1990, p. 29). Finally, Rogers saw the life
process as showing increasing complexity. This
assumption, along with the work of Itzhak
Bentov (1978), which viewed life as a process of ex-
panding consciousness, helped to enrich Margaret
Newman’s conceptualization of health and eventu-
ally her theory (1997b).
In 1977, when teaching nursing theory develop-
ment at Penn State, Margaret Newman received an
invitation to speak at a nursing theory conference218 SECTION III Nursing Theory in Nursing Practice, Education, Research, and Administration