Phenomenology, as a guiding framework for this study, is integral to an holistic perspective. A basic assumption of phenomenology is that phenomena can be examined holistically. Every effort was made to allow the participants to include all issues relevant to the experience of healing and to examine their experience in a holistic framework. The literature reviewed was often found to relate to parts of the data. Each theme will be explored to demonstrate the congruencies and discrepancies with this literature.
Active Participation had a focus of self-healing. The role of doctors and other health professionals, family, friends and God were included, however, participants believed there were physiological processes over which they had no conscious control. They did believe that they had a major responsibility to heal themselves. Self-healing was stressed by Jaffe (1990) and Albright and Albright (1990). In both papers techniques to enhance healing were discussed. These include biofeedback, imagery and relaxation.
The focus was not on natural self-healing styles nor on what individuals did to help their own healing, but on what practitioners believed to be useful to enhance healing. Nurse theorist such as Parse and Orem discussed active participation, by the patients, in the healing process. Parse (2001) believed that individuals are responsible for their personal health through reflective and pre-reflective choosing. She saw humans as “cocreating” health by participating with the environment.
Omery (2003) considered self-care as the central goal of nurse-patient contact. Self-care included practices and activities that are initiated and performed by an individual to maintain their own life, health, and well-being. The nurse intervenes only when self-care is not possible and returns the responsibility for self-care back to the individual in whatever way it is possible, as soon as it is possible. Orem and others have refined this theory making it concrete for practice and research.
For example, ten “power components” have been defined, identifying such self-care issues as: decision-making about self-care; ordering discrete self-care actions; and integrating self-care operations with other aspects of living (Gast, et. al. , 1999). Narayan and Joslin (1990), in describing the components of holistic health, saw nurses as the facilitator of healing but that the responsibility for one’s health rests within the individual. Wood (1999) discussed the self-care literature in general and expressed a concern that it is assumed that helping oneself is beneficial.
She examines self-care in relation to models of illness behavior, health behavior, and health promotion, and notes that none of them include health as an outcome. She contended that obtaining evidence that self-care has a beneficial effect on health should be a high priority for future research. The participants in this study believed self-care was beneficial but this is an important question for further study. Another important aspect of Active Participation was the desire to regain control.
According to Bandura (1999), the belief of individuals that they can exercise control over events that affect their lives, is very important to human beings. This includes an ability to exercise control over one’s thoughts, motivation and action. Bandura believes people vary in their conviction that they will be able to exercise control over potential threats. When the threat occurs, people who show more conviction that they will be able to exercise control, show fewer stress responses.