Understanding healing: a conceptual analysis.
The practice of the healing arts has been a part of human history since ancient times. Despite the development of related scholarly concepts in nursing such as caring, healing remains an enigma. Using conceptual analysis a clear definition of healing within a Rogerian/Newmanian framework is explicated. Case development assists in the understanding of healing as a concept, and questions arising from this definition provide focus for further scholarly work. A result of this process of concept analysis was the development of a definition of healing which is clear and which fits the theoretical underpinnings of the unitary-transformative paradigm. Healing, as a core variable of interest in the study of health, provides important parameters for study. The definition of healing which arose from the concept analysis is: Healing is an experiential, energy-requiring process in which space is created through a caring relationship in a process of expanding consciousness and results in a sense of wholeness, integration, balance and transformation and which can never be fully known.
University of Colorado, Health Sciences Centre, Denver, USA.
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Wendler
D000328:Adult; D004645:Empathy; D005260:Female; D018939:Holistic Nursing; D006801:Humans; D008602:Mental Healing; D008875:Middle Aged; D016294:Models, Nursing; D009723:Nurse-Patient Relations; D010687:Philosophy, Nursing