Self-care
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Self care is the individual practise of health management without the aid of a medical professional.
Philosophy
Michel Foucault understood the art of living (French art de vivre, Latin ars vivendi) and the care of self (French le souci de soi) to be central to philosophy. The third volume of his three-volume study The History of Sexuality is dedicated to this notion. For Foucault, the notion of care for the self (epimeleia heautou) of Ancient Greek and Roman philosophy comprises an attitude towards the self, others, and the world, as well as a certain form of attention. For Foucault, the pursuit of the care for one's own well-being also comprises self-knowledge (gnōthi seauton).
Around the same time that Foucault developed his notion of care for the self, the notion of self-care as a revolutionary act in the context of social trauma was developed as a social justice practice in Black feminist thought in the US. Notably, civil rights activist and poet Audre Lorde wrote that in the context of multiple oppressions as a black woman, “caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.” With the rise of the term in the medical usages, for instance, to combat anxiety, the association with black feminism has fallen away in clinical and popular usage. However, in feminist and queer theory, the link to Lorde and other scholars is retained.
The self-care deficit nursing theory was developed by Dorothea Orem between 1959 and 2001. The positively viewed theory explores the use professional care and an orientation towards resources. Under Orem's model self-care has limits when its possibilities have been exhausted therefore making professional care legitimate. These deficits in self-care are seen as shaping the best role a nurse may provide. There are two phases in Orem's self-care: the investigative and decision-making phase, and the production phase.
See also
- Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990#Major life activities
- Executive functioning
- Integrative medicine
