Critical Care: Delivering Spiritual Care in Healthcare Contexts

by Peter Sedgwick (Editor), Andrew Todd (Editor), Jonathan Pye (Editor), Rodney Baxendale (Contribution by), Hamish Ferguson-Stuart (Contribution by)

Overview

Providing a bridge between research in healthcare and spirituality and practitioner perspectives, these essays on chaplaincy in healthcare continue dialogue around constructing, negotiating and researching spiritual care and discuss the critical issues in chaplaincy work, including assisted suicide and care in children's hospices. Each section of the book is introduced by an academic theologian, giving the book a strong theoretical base, before serving healthcare chaplains offer their perspectives and experiences with material drawn from practice in a broad spectrum of healthcare contexts.

The integration of theory and practical application in these essays will be of interest to chaplains, healthcare practitioners, and students of theology and healthcare.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780857009012
Publisher:	Kingsley, Jessica Publishers
Publication date:	07/21/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	280
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Steve Nolan, Ph.D., is a palliative care chaplain at Princess Alice Hospice, Surrey, UK, where he works daily with people who are dying, supporting them and their families. He regularly teaches spiritual care to students visiting the hospice and is a tutor on the MTh in Chaplaincy Studies at St. Michael's College, Llandaff, part of Cardiff University.

Table of Contents

Preface. Part 1. Constructing Spiritual Care. 1.1. The narrative of spiritual care: Locating models of spiritual care within contemporary healthcare education and practice. Jonathan H. Pye. 1.2. Discourses of Spiritual Health Care. Hamish Ferguson-Stuart. 1.3. Making Use of Models of Healthcare Chaplaincy. Stephen Flatt. 1.4. Biblical texts, chaplaincy and mental health service users. Anne McCormick. Part 2. Negotiating Spiritual Care in Public. 2.1. The value of spiritual care: Negotiating spaces and practices for spiritual care in the public domain. Andrew Todd. 2.2. Legal and policy frameworks for spiritual care. Layla Welford. 2.3. From atheist to Zoroastrians: What are the implications for professional healthcare chaplaincy of the requirement to provide spiritual care to people of all faiths and none? Mirabai Galashan. 2.4. Developing a Model of Chaplaincy through the Translation of Nursing Theory. Debbie Hodge. Part 3. Researching Spiritual Care. 3.1. Making spiritual care visible: The developing agenda and methodologies for research in spiritual care. Steve Nolan. 3.2. Researching spiritual care in a mental health context. Julian Raffay. 3.3. How secular is the NHS? The significance of volunteers and their beliefs. Karen MacKinnon. 3.4. Observing, recording and analysing spiritual care in an acute setting. Rodney Baxendale. Part 4. Critical Issues in Spiritual Care. 4.1. The practice of spiritual care in the context of suffering: Questions for the self as a 'spiritual being'. Peter Sedgwick. 4.2. Assisted suicide: A dignified end to severe and enduring mental illness? Charles Thody. 4.3. Insights into spiritual need and care arising out of the experience of those living with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI). Richard Wharton. 4.4. 'A hidden wholeness': Spiritual care in a children's hospice. Mark Clayton. Bibliography.

Editorial Reviews

Though we live in a secular time, we are still confronted with questions about meaning and purpose, particularly when we become ill or are confronted with a terminal condition. Spiritual care tries to support patients, carers and staff to find an answer to such questions in a dialogical and compassionate way. This book presents excellent contributions to spiritual care from a multi-disciplinary perspective and will certainly help to develop spiritual care as a professional practice. This is very much needed in view of the economisation of health care and the marginalization of the care for the spiritual needs of patients and their carers.

Ruud ter Meulen

The development of meaning and practice in spiritual and pastoral care in hospital chaplaincy has applications both to the healthcare system and beyond. This book makes a great contribution to that development. Three eminent thinkers in this area provide the context and connections, and several practitioners provide the reflection on practice - bridging the gaps between theory, values and practice; theological reflection and reflective practice; and spirituality and the practice of healthcare. Don't just view this book as relevant to the profession of hospital chaplaincy (significant though its contribution to that is), view it as a major contribution to the profession of care in any context.

Simon Robinson

This is one of the most comprehensive and practical books on healthcare chaplaincy I've read. Like the act of chaplaincy itself, it takes the reader to a place of deep questioning and embodies the theology it espouses: relational, panentheistic, apophatic and humble. Its value reaches far beyond the healthcare context into what spirituality can offer the public square more generally. Highly recommended.

Claire Foster-Gilbert

For those involved in providing spiritual care within the NHS in the UK, this is an invaluable book - clear, well written and structured, and with impeccable bibliography and further resources to aid study.

Ministry Today UK