--- In Martha_E_Rogers@yahoogroups.com, hugh rooney <culdeerscry@...> wrote:
>
> Very much enjoyed your exploration. For what it's worth , it seems to me to
point towards a cyclical explantion of processes rather than one of linearity.
Such an example might well fit with your patients' experiences.
> The cycles themselves are unique processes  and it might be interesting to
speculate whether it's the transitonal phases ( an amalgam of deathand birth
) between them that account for the turbulence ?
> Anyway .... a few random thoughts.
> Hugh Rooney
> --- On Wed, 29/4/09, nancyscroggs@... <nancyscroggs@...> wrote:
>
>
> From: nancyscroggs@... <nancyscroggs@...>
> Subject: [Martha_E_Rogers] Can anyone help me with a Rogerian quote?
> To: Martha_E_Rogers@yahoogroups.com
> Date: Wednesday, 29 April, 2009, 8:21 PM
>
> Thanks for your response and insights. I understand what you're saying,but
one on the things that still nags at me is in the later part of the definition
of punctuationalsm "....periods of little or no change" If change is constant
and dynamic, then there can be no periods of no change. Perhaps the change is
occurring at such slow rhythm that it is not recognized. Maybe in midlife, women
are expereincing a shift in the the movemevnt from a lower to higher frequency
of change.> Nancy
>
>
>
>
>
> I ran across this quote in Rogers' 1990 article, "Space-Age Paradigm for New
Frontiers in Nursing" in Malinski's and Barrett's (Eds.) Martha E. Rogers: Her
Life and Work. "continuous change emerges out of nonequilibrium and exhibits
punctualism rather that gradualism. Change is accelerating"
>
> It has caused me some confusion.
> At first reading, it would seem Rogers is contradicting her principles of
homeodynamics by referring to change as exhibiting punctualism as it seems to
imply an almost linear evolutional process.
>
> I could not find punctualism in any of my sources, but did find
punctuationalism
> The doctrine of punctuationalism( according to Oxford dictionary definition)
states that "evolutionary development is marked by isolated episodes of rapid
speciation between long periods of little or no change".
>
> The doctrine of gradualism (same Oxford reference) states that "evolution
proceeds chiefly by the accumulation of gradual change"
>
> Assuming the definitions of these two doctrines are what she understood them
to be, then is Rogers really saying that while change is always ongoing,
evolution of the species is associated with certain events or triggers? If so,
then is midlife transition in a woman one of the "isolated episodes of
speciation" that Rogers refers to as punctuationistic; and therefore the life
patterning the manifestation of the change that emerges out of the
nonequilibrium? Using for example the focus of my dissertaiton, women in midlife
transition. During midlife, women experience an unsettling or disequilibrium as
many of their relative-past ,relative-present, and relative future patterns are
being challenged. The changes are seemingly to occur rapidly, chaotically, and
simultaneously. Is this what Rogers meant by "exhibiting punctuationalism" ?
Could it be said that change is constant and dynamic, but that the transitions
are those "isolated episodes of speciation"
> marked by rapid and pandimensional change that are evolutional? If so, how
does one get around the idea of a linear process implied by punctuationalism?
>
> I welcome your insights.
> Thanks, NancyScroggs
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>