Spirituality and Palliative Care Social and Pastoral Perspectives

by Rumbold, Bruce

• ISBN13: 9780195513523
• ISBN10: 0195513525
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-05-13
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Spirituality and Palliative Care: Social and Pastoral Perspectives provides an overview of issues involved in offering spiritual care in contemporary Western society, with a particular focus on implications for palliative care. This book is shaped by the conviction that palliative care needs to incorporate relevant and informed approaches to spiritual care in order to continue to develop as an holistic, life-affirming discipline. For this to occur, spiritual care should draw upon social and cultural analyses of contemporary spirituality and health care practice and on the resources of various religious traditions. The books seeks to avoid both the apologetic interests inherent in many religious approaches to spiritual care the individualistic subjective approach that characterises much non-religious writingon spiritual care. Contributors are drawn from the disciplines of health sociology, pastoral care, philosophy, and religious studies. This path-breaking book is invaluable for students practicing spiritual care in all disciplines but particularly those in health care, religious studies, or the social sciences. It is also of interest to those in the palliative care field - health care practitioners, managers, and educators - who seek a better understanding of the contribution of spiritual care to palliative care.

Table of Contents

Introduction: From religion to spirituality

Religion, pastoral care, spirituality and the contemporary search for meaning in suffering

Towards a philosophy of caring and spirituality for a secular age

Dying the way we live

Finding life through facing death

Reflecting upon Experience

It's the way my spirit speaks: vocation and life-threatening illness

Facing the situation

Offering spiritual care

Crossing boundaries

Supervision and spirituality for the caregivers

Developing Responses

Spiritual care in palliative care

New horizons in spirituality research

Dying as a spiritual quest

Guidelines for Spiritual Care

Bibliography

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.