Spiritual healing – we know our patients need it . . . and we want to give it to them.
But it can be tough to combine spirituality and practice. If you haven’t talked with your patients about spiritual health before, how do you begin?
A pair of researchers in Norway held focus groups with nursing students to hear their experiences integrating spirituality into their education and practice.
Their findings contained some illuminating lessons.
Many students felt responsible for the spiritual health of their patients, yet they felt that spiritual care was poorly defined and barely focused on professionally.
Without adequate preparation, students reported having difficulty relating to their patients, especially those of faiths other than their own.
They’d also seen few role models for dealing with their patients’ spiritual concerns.
Without mentors to guide them, some students found clinical situations involving spirituality demanding, painful, and risky, so they avoided the topic altogether.
Students also told researchers that before they were able to connect with patients, they had to understand their own spirituality. To build successful relationships with their patients, the students first had to think about their own faith, reflect upon their clinical experiences, and share those experiences with others.
Finally, the researchers found that the students wanted more training.
But it’s not just students who need to be comfortable talking about spirituality with their patients.
If you want to read the whole study, you can find it in the Journal of Clinical Nursing.
What spiritual lessons have you shared with your colleagues, peers, or patients? What lessons have you learned from them in return? Please post a comment below.
Thank you Ruth for your amazing presentations.
As a nurse I have pursued spirituality in my practice having worked from the heart in my career.
An amazing leader in this area has been Dr. Jean Watson from Denver Colorado. Check out her web site.
University of Calgary also did work in the area of Beliefs…….. A book by Dr Lorraine Wright and Dr Janice Bell.
In the 1990s I was privileged to participate in a Spiritual Emergency Syndromes certification training. The training stressed that there is a difference between religion and spirituality.
Our literature reported that research was not getting into peer reviewed journals because of bias and prejudice. Psychologists and psychiatrists label religious and or spiritual behaviors as illness (the mystical experience and near death experience) or ignore it.
The Spiritual Emergence Network had been collecting data on people who were going through unusual and in many cases bizarre experiences. Some looked like mental or physical illness. Some experiences such as kundalini are known about in other cultures but would not be recognized in western cultures.
The training educated us how to recognize who are going through these transformative experiences. We learned they have to be supported in ways antithetical to medical and psychological practice.
In reviewing the data SEN had collected on the precipitating event, I saw that a majority looked like they were a result of trauma.
Joseph Campbell thought to these experiences were very like the Heros Journey – going inside to find a lost piece of the self – coming back and bringing something to the community. If the experiencer can be helped through they become better than they were.
Bill Wilson who founded Alcoholics Anonymous is an example.
I’m currently in remission from Multiple Myeloma. I know that the spiritual guidance through therapy and prayer combined with the chemical therapy I received are responsible for my healing and continued well being. Add to that an optimistic outlook and lots of loving family and friends has also helped!
Hello friends,
I have been in practice for over forty years. I have always incorperated the spiritual aspects of healing into my consultations as I was guided by my Elders. I believe that is why I always had patients even when this type of medicine was not so much in style. I found patients enjoyed this aspect as I spent a minimum of an hour with each one to be able to better understand the true underlying facets of the dis-ease state. It has been an amazing journey as I trust my Creator to be my guide in my service. I always turn my face towards the Divine before I would consult with any patient as I had been taught by my Grandfaters. I feel very blessed to have had so many wonderful experiences with so many varied religions as well as having studied, in depth, all the holy books and the teachings of the Prophets. True healing, in my humble opinion, may only happen when we learn to deal with all aspects of multi-dimensional beings.
Mitakuye Oyasin-We are all related
W.J. “Doc” Martin Jr.
Chaplains are at the forefront of providing pluralistic and effective spiritual care across a wide variety of institutions, including healthcare, universities, prisons, military, corporations, and even cruiseships! We are also professionally trained as clinicians and counselors- most holding three-year master degrees, post graduate clinical pastoral training, education, and supervision, and ordination and endorsement from faith communities, etc. It saddens me that I have not heard mention of chaplaincy in this wonderful program so far. This is the work we do every day!
I’ve worked as a chaplain in hospitals, mental health, and now in hospice. Thankfully, the role of spiritual care is gaining momentum and chaplains are now being required to be part of healthcare programs, inter-disciplinary teams, etc. Unfortunately,, there is a lot of stigma on chaplains due to spiritual abuses that have been suffered in the past within religious institutions. At times, One of our biggest jobs is to listen, educate and hold any projection in a healing way.
Chaplains come with all backgrounds. I, myself, come from a Buddhist tradition. Chaplaincy has become much more inclusive in the past decades and holds an interfaith openness and understanding at the heart of it.
My wish is that in the next series we can hear the voice of a chaplain. This work has been alive through the dedicated work of many chaplains throughout time, serving our patients, our country. So, if you meet a chaplain in the field, say hello. we are your close companions on this journey.
Peace,
Nathaniel Vose
I found the talk last night both thought provoking and affirming.
I guess many of us know that experience when, after discussing a client in supervision, at the next session, change has happened without any contact! I guess that this is the same principle at work of a universality of connections that so far we know little about, and yet have lots of evidence for.
Also, I felt drawn to pull out an old favourite book by the psychoanalyst Christopher Bollas..”The Shadow of the Object: Psychoanalysis of the unthought known” Here again, Bollas’s understanding of the ‘unthought known’ fits so well with the discussion.
Sheila
Integrated Energy Therapy is a powerful spiritual, energy therapy designed to clear the body of unwanted emotions. It utilizes a universal energy source that has long been part of eastern healing traditions (acupuncture, reiki, etc.) IET techniques facilitate the release of stored cellular memories/emotions. Releasing cellular memories in a body helps facilitates the bodies healing on all four levels, physical, emotional, spiritual and mental. It gets the issues out of the tissues so the client can move on and get well !
IET has truly helped thousands of people on all levels ….why not give it a try! It really does make you feel so much better!
My name is Debbie Soul and I would love to come and do an introductory class or do sessions for your office . Please call me at 347-224-2384 to set up a meeting at your earliest convenience.
Print-out Marty’s remarks, get the sheet plastic coated,
keep it on your desk. Read often, especially when you
think you know what you are talking about.
I actually found this more ennittaireng than James Joyce.
Why bring up all those connotations that are attached with the word spirituality. Meditation has the same amount or more for complexities and misunderstandings.
Why not use the phrase of we are practicing a focus exercise. my model of the breathing track following our breath helps balance and slow our mind down.
Clients use simple concrete exercises and get confused by complex, multifaceted therese and practice tools.
All we want is to get to a state of no thought. That is be able to focus on the breath and slow the speed of the mind for two minutes max. A thought or scary emotion will fade without attention in that time.
It is better to practice this small exercise with every thought than go to all the lectures on spirituality.
Mindfulness is not an intellectual thing. If you have not sit meditating for years, how could you even fathom what it is about or how to use it.
Therapists have not practiced mindfulness that much and are now using it Iike they are experts. The power held inside the right hemisphere is amazing and can heal most disorders and more.
There are so few people healing from PTSD or C-PTSD and I see no urgency on professionals part. A simple way out that c.ients can practice everyday would be great.
I am a lay person and I have a breathing track model and a healing model that is concrete simple and basic. it works if you do the daily work.
Marty
I listened to Larry with a great sense of yearning. In the UK there is a great taboo of praying with patients, even if the patient has accepted the offer. We have had a number of prosecutions from both patients and Health Trusts – which, by and large, the defendant has lost on the basis of ‘forcing religion on people’ This is a very sad when we know that praying and/or meditation is part of the whole as far as healing is concerned
Ann Churchill
Marty, I agree that spirituality is overloaded with connotations, rather than speaking expressly about skills. Its like so much of psychology is being hijacked, and I hate it. I’ll have a look at nursing in Australia, where I think there will be a different focus.
Dawn, I would agree that psychology/counselling is being hi-jacked by the heavy influence of different practices including mindfulness which is ultimately founded in Buddhism. In Australia religion or faith discussions are clearly frowned upon and can be viewed as not upholidng the professions values and code of coduct which could have serious legal consequences. My concern is that some of the new theroies founded in eastern religions including meditation, yoga and mindfulness are now being included in our theoretical foundations of practice and being taught in the tertiary courses. We either embrace all of it or none of it! There seems to be a discrepancy happening here.
I like all the mindfulness techniques as they have a wealth of studies behind them. There is no notion of a higher power, just a series of practices which help people clarify their values and become aware of their internal and external realm. I trained in the 70s (Hons and Masters), where meditation was influenced by Indian philosophies and I prefer mindfulness where there is an acceptance of the Hurley-burley that is our mind, rather than trying to control it (long discussion). Mindfulness is not a spiritual practice, but a psychological practice. People like to call things ‘spiritual’ whereas in my mind, they are psychological. My quibble is twofold – 1. I’m a happy atheist who is fighting a rear-guard action for secular psychology, and 2. I object to the word ‘spiritual’, when we have had decades of secular psychology and philosophy which have discussed values clarification and methods for living with our crazy minds.
I like ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy), and would recommend Russ Harris ‘The Happiness Trap’.
So techniques can originate anywhere, and can be tested rigorously to be included in psychology. So Larry Dossey is changing the concept of ‘prayer’ to a more secular form of intentional thought and studying that. I have no problem with the origin of the practice, just that it is described and studied meticulously.
Marty, this is an important point you make. I have previously looked up your breathing tracks on the web and was impressed.
It is true as well that we need to remain cognizant of all those who would be unsure or even negative about adding spirituality to their medical or therapeutic relationship. (and sometimes for good reason)
At the very least, starting out with brief, clear-cut breathing exercises would be of great benefit.
In addition, there is much needed training in all of the unspoken ways to build compassionate awareness and knowledge of the mind-body connection that a practitioner can use from his/her
own consciousness.
Finally, if well-understood agreement by patient/client and practitioner : then additional mindfulness techniques and/or aspects of spirituality may be shared.
Here is the leanest example of mindfulness/meditation simplified to this small model.
The issue all have is getting lost in thought. Most people get Los at the end of the inhale and at the end of he exhle or in he transitions or pauses. Clients will take years to master usin he old counting method.
I would recommend not to use he count our breath method. Counting is a high cognitive function, the opposite of what weare looking do.
Look at it from a clients perspective. An abstract concept of counting the breaths or a simple model.
This can be pinted and he client knows exactl what to do. A client who takes action moves from victimhood to actively healing some..