Nursing, Caring, and Complexity Science: For Human ... - Axon

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foreword
Alice and her co-editors, Marilyn Ray and Marian Turkel, are pioneers in
the insight that it is possible to bring science to address the most complex,
personal, interpersonal, biological, and social conditions. Nurses help people
under complex stresses, biologically, physically, and socially. Essential
to future advances in this field is recognizing this complexity as well as the
opportunities we have for deep understanding and insights. This volume
illustrates the many opportunities for scientific study.
It is difficult to write this foreward knowing that Alice will not be present
in any of my future classes, though her contributions are surely always represented
in the slides where I describe her findings.
As the editors and authors clearly state, “nursing is about caring.” It is
appropriate that the effort to bring complex systems science into nursing
received such early attention. After all, it is complex systems science that
provides a framework for thinking about relatedness and relationships, a
concept diminished in traditional science. The example I often give of the
lack of perspective on relationships and their importance is the traditional
dictionary definition of mother: “A female parent.” The often-missing relational
definition might be “What a child calls his or her female parent.” The
difference is both simple and profound, with pervasive significance for our
society.
It should be clear that despite abstract concepts and formulations, underlying
the effort of this book is a profound sense of relationship with those
who need help, those we care for.
Yaneer Bar-Yam
New England Complex Systems Institute
Reference
Davidson, A., Teicher, M. H., & Bar-Yam, Y. (1997). The role of environmental complexity
in the well-being of the elderly. Complexity and Chaos in Nursing, 3, 5–12.