A Humanbecoming Program of Research

Parse’s (1998, 2007, 2010) humanbecoming school of thought highlights that human beings and the universe are constantly changing. Since it also assumes, with a little audacity, that human beings are free to choose meaning and make decisions, it follows that some aspects of the ever-changing humanuniverse are related to human actions. To do research on an ongoing basis requires and benefits from having a coherent and consistent focus, or what Gardner (2008) described as having a disciplined mind. By disciplined mind he meant someone who is able to maintain a coherent field of study, who at the same time continues at an activity or regimen until becoming highly proficient. This coherence provides a home base from which one can journey and return to as desired.

Ideally, a humanbecoming program of research builds systematically on and takes off from one’s master’s thesis or doctoral dissertation. A humanbecoming program of research can be initiated even earlier if one has had the exceptional good fortune to work with a researcher who is willing to be a mentor and who shares similar interests, beliefs, and values, while working on a topic, project, or theory that is sustaining and intellectually compelling. For the author of this section of the column, a program of research has arisen from a relationship with Dr. Parse and various Parse scholars, an affinity to the humanbecoming school of thought and its associated research methods, a commitment to the profession of nursing, and a desire to understand what it means to be human, particularly as it is lived by persons whom others have tended to shun. Chekhov (1898/2011) is translated to have said,

We do not see and we do not hear those who suffer, and what is terrible in life goes on somewhere behind the scenes …. And this order of things is evidently necessary; evidently the happy man only feels at ease because the unhappy bears their burdens in silence, and without that silence happiness would be impossible. (p. 2397)

While the general population may prefer to not think about the suffering of others, nurses are not afforded this luxury, nor are humanbecoming-based researchers, even when they choose to study a phenomenon such as hope, since they inevitably hear about human suffering or challenges. Or perhaps, it is as Vanier (1998) said in various ways, people are all handicapped, the only difference is that for some it is more obvious. He, like this author, found ongoing inspiration and new understanding about being human from participants who are faced with various challenges and circumstances. Programs of research based on the humanbecoming school of thought rely on persistent curiosity and a desire to uncover humanuniverse truths as revealed by persons.

Gardner’s (2008) notion of a disciplined mind is particularly apropos for someone who seeks a program of research while also being an educator and clinician. This is the case because of the flood of information that is the digital age, and the anxiety created by pressures to compete for funding and produce outstanding scholarship. A balanced tension between the two meanings of the word discipline is also important because of the increasing difficulty to obtain institutional review board approval in studies involving open-ended questions and the amount of work to publish findings. What Pharris (2011) said about nursing practice today is also true about having a program of nursing research, it must be “deeply rooted in the knowledge of the discipline while responding with agility to social trends and conditions” (p. 194). Parse’s (2010) notion of freedom as contextually construed liberation, can also be applied to nurse researchers who have a program of research since one study gives direction to the next, while encouraging the researchers to take advantage of opportunities and ride out the challenges of their current situations. While developing and maintaining a disciplined program of research may also be the best strategy to get funded, funding should, no matter how esteemed, not be seen as ends, but only as means. Pharris (2011) offered a more useful end for nursing, the “greatest service to the health of the global community” (p. 193). Of course nurses and nurse researchers must uncover, embrace, and nurture their highest reaches or ends.

Hickey (2010) stated that what he learned climbing the world’s 7 highest summits provides a useful guide for success as a nurse, and for a program of research, I would add. In addition to maintaining one’s balance and well-being, he emphasized; goal-setting, motivation, dedication, and remaining focused on the pursuits at hand despite adversity. While not being nearly as spectacular or dangerous as climbing Mount Everest, the author’s studies using Parse’s research method have been career high points, which have come with a considerable sense of accomplishment and satisfaction. They, like mountaineering, have been activities that have demanded considerable preparation, the overcoming of various obstacles required the assistance of others, and sometimes involved personal expense and sacrifice. In part because of the demands of research, they have provided vistas that have lead to subsequent studies. However, they have also raised some questions while they answered others.

The clearest ripple effect of studies done by this author were studies of feeling uncomfortable and having hope in children living in emergency housing, that followed from a study on having no place of their own which was a Parse study of mothers and children living in shelters (Baumann, 1994).The Parse study arose from a study on the meaning of being homeless, which was a phenomenological study of 15 homeless women with dependent children (Baumann, 1993). This series of studies provided the researcher and others who were interested, with some understanding of human beings as they struggle to live their dignity, cherished relationships, and sense of purpose while faced with adverse circumstances. These studies also in a modest way contributed to discipline specific nursing knowledge. The nursing theory base from which the studies arose helped the researcher to ask questions and uncover meanings of human experiences in a way that was different from medicine, social work, and psychology as these disciplines have studied similar situations and families. It also provided practice and refinement in using nursing research methods, including the use of art with children from the humanbecoming theory perspective. A later study from this line of research was a study of the lived experience of feeling loved (Baumann, 2000). The participants of the study were women with young children, who were living in a shelter-based parolee program. These women qualified for a community-based early release program from prison because they had a baby while in prison. The research question for this study flowed out of comments by participants from the author’s previous studies about how intimate relationships provide a sense of home in unfamiliar circumstances, and how not having a place of their own threatened relationships. The participants in the shelter-based parolee program did have a great deal to talk about when asked about what feeling loved was like for them, and their comments expressed something of their experience of hope, which arose for children living in emergency housing as well. One core concept for the women in a shelter-based parolee program was “feeling loved is an unshakable presence arising with moments of uplifting delight and bewildering trepidation” (Baumann, 2000, p. 335) in other words, having someone who was there for them, no matter what.

An example of one somewhat tangential pair of studies done by the researcher, started with a study of adults followed by a similar study involving children. The study involving children was an exploratory descriptive study of being a sibling (of a brother or sister with special circumstances) with the humanbecoming theory as the frame of reference which followed from a similar method study of being a father (of children with special circumstances). The later study, titled in part out of their element (Baumann, 1999), tried to capture something of the father’s search for meaning, shifting relationships, and changing views of the future after having unexpected childbirth experiences and demands and joys of parenting children with special circumstances. The follow-up study asked the same questions of school age brothers or sisters of similar children. The desire to study children in these families, as well as those in the shelters, followed logically from preceding humanbecoming guided studies. It should be noted that the ontology of humanbecoming (Parse, 2007) accepts and respects what children have to say about their experiences and it sees them as full participants in the co-creation of their world. These assumptions contradict some developmental theories which see young children as unable to use abstract concepts or essentially as products of their environment or neurochemistry.

Since a program of research using Parse’s method relies on phenomenology and hermeneutics, as well as offering true presence to research participants, it involves considerable personal reflection and a living of the theory. The author holds that such a discipline brings out more of what it means to be human; where research activities are a search for purpose and meaning, which gives rise to unfolding possibilities. Doing a series of phenomenological inquires linked with humanbecoming theory (Parse, 2007, 2010) has provided the author with life changing endeavors which has afforded vistas likened to the peaks of the world’s highest summits. The theory and method have been a mechanism to ask meaningful questions, learn from participants, and enjoy having what the Buddhists call a beginner’s mind (Suzuki, 1970), a mind open to limitless possibilities.