Spiritualität und Medizin
Ausgabe: 2/2009
55. Jahrgang
Spiritual Care ein neues Fachgebiet der Medizin
German speaking health professionals are currently using the Anglo-Saxon term »spiritual care« for assessing and addressing the spiritual needs and options of patients who suffer from cancer and other serious illnesses. The author argues that spiritual care should not be delegated to chaplains, but rather that clergy and health professionals provide spiritual care through an inter-professional cooperation. Spiritual care has been criticised as »generic chaplaincy«, jeopardising the mission of religious communities and the patients opportunity for reconciliation with God. Furthermore, it is argued that spiritual care may entail the risk of a neo-pastoral power usurped by doctors controlling their patients inner spiritual lives. Spiritual care is reasonably described as being at the intersection of medical and religious discourses. Spiritual communication, in contrast to religious practice, is not rooted in beliefs, rituals, or membership of a group, but in the speakers authentic exchange about what is undeterminable and beyond the limits of what we can know.
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