Dorothy Johnson's Behavioral System Model

The framework of this theory states that its focus is on the seven categories of behavior. Individual's goal is to achieve behavioral balance and steady state by adjustment and adaptation to certain forces.
This theory lacks to focus on the role of the nurse if the client or individual is well as stated in the theory of Virginia Henderson: "assisting the individual sick or well in the performance of those activities contributing to health or its recovery… that he would perform unaided if he had the necessary strength, will, or knowledge. And to do this in such a way as to help gain independence as rapidly as possible."
Dorothy Johnson's theory of nursing focuses on how the client adapts to illness and how actual or potential stress can affect the ability to adapt. The goal of nursing is to reduce stress so that the client can move easily through recovery (Johnson, 1968).
With this theory, I came to recall the theories concerning diseases; I came to reinvestigate the Homeostatic theories by Bernanard, Cannon, Selye and Mason.
I agree on Johnson's theory as supported by the theorists that I have mentioned.
Using the term, adaptive effort, which is appropriate to the illness/incorrect with its magnitude. This allow me to understand that the body itself has its adaptive effort or the coping mechanism with the changes especially in the internal or physiologic aspect. Moreover, with the definition that health is the result or the balance within the internal environment of the body and disease as the opposite of the definition further strengthens the view that when the body is in the state of stress, disease would occur.
Relating Walter Cannon's theory on feedback mechanism which is the ability to resist changes in order to restore homeostasis, further convinced that with stress affecting the body's ability to adopt, the positive feedback would lead to no help while the opposite or the negative feedback mechanism will be the one that will contribute help. With the goal of nursing in reducing stress, this would lead to dynamic equilibrium which is the flexible ongoing process to maintain certain factors within a given range. This is now the so-called fight or flight mechanism.
Since stress could be characterized into local or general, the nursing goal of reducing stress must be specific and therefore, excessive demands in a person's life must be the focus: explain the negative effects of stressful activities in a person's life and explain how the stress mechanism lower body's resistance to disease and cause organ damage.
John Mason's Stress Response: stress is a specific psychological response and stress response is dependent on psychological factors allows a deeper understanding on the contribution of psychological aspect to the stress state and therefore, the nurse should know how to manage with this in order to attack the problem according to the psychological aspect and not merely on the focus of giving medications.
Johnson's theory focuses on basic needs in terms of the following categories of behavior: Security-seeking behavior, nurturance-seeking behavior, Master of oneself and one's environment according to internalized standards of excellence, Taking in nourishment in socially and culturally acceptable ways, ridding the body of waste in socially and culturally acceptable ways, sexual and role identity behavior.
With the goal of caring for and helping the client attain total self-care, the above mentioned behavior must be studied by the nurse in order to know how to deal with the clients displaying those behavior so that the goal will be attained at a level that will allow the restoration of the patients' health.
Going back to the goal: to reduce stress so that the client can move more easily through recovery process, stresses that man as a behavioral system composing of the following subsystems: ingestive, eliminative, affiliative, aggressive, dependence, achievement, and sexual should strive to achieve homeostasis and stability both in the internal and external so that he could function effectively by adjusting and adapting to environmental forces through learned patterns of response.
I agree that the patient strives to become a person whose behavior is commensurate with social demands and therefore, the nurse should not neglect to understand the social needs of the patients but in the state of illness were there's a presence of stress, it should be noted that these social activities are reduced in order to regain the energy lost as a result of the imbalance.
Man therefore as the highest form of animal as categorized by Taxonomists has the ability to cope with the changing environment and therefore with his dynamic mechanism, he must be able to modify his behavior for his own health and in order to conserve his biologic imperatives. The law of conservation states that the four aspects: social integrity, personal, structural and energy should be conserved especially in illness so that there will be more hope of regaining them.
Doing the above, would contribute a lot to the patient allowing him to benefit to the fullest extent during illness. Going back to Hippocrates' belief that in the process of recovery, he noted the presence of the health care provider, may I stress that the health care professional's knowledge and skills is evident as an important tool that the nurse should possess.
Last but not the least, since the Behavioral System Model focus on the behavioral aspect that is being affected and the one that responses in the state of illness/stress, the health care provider or the nurse should also display a behavior that will serve as a buffer in the recovery of the patient and not to display a contributory factor, the one that gives unnecessary trauma or a consequence of illness.