Spiritual
Care
“Professional
spiritual care involves promoting an individuals personal
integrity, interpersonal relationships and the search
for meaning.”
Wright
Professional
spiritual care providers may also be referred to as chaplains.These
professionals constitute an interwoven knowledge and merger
of both theology and psychology. Professional
spiritual care providers are able to assess a person’s
spiritual needs knowing that each person has a different
and unique spirituality.
There is
not just one approach that can be assumed for each person. Every approach must
best fit the person being supported and cared for. The
professional spiritual care providers have the ability to
assess the spiritual needs of people. They can then
use this assessment to:
- help the person discover and articulate
their purpose in life,
- to learn how to release and let go
and
- to experience joy, love, and a sense
of calming.
Professional
spiritual care providers know that a person’s beliefs
and values are extremely important at this time. They
have the ability to recognize a person’s set of beliefs
which were learnt at a young age and determine whether
they are enhancing or harming to them. If they are harmful,
a chaplain or spiritual care provider can assist the person
in learning how to replace these harming beliefs with more
positive ones. Beliefs
that will enhance their life!
Professional
spiritual care providers have the ability and knowing to
set aside their own agendas in order to be reverent to
another and to be able to listen with compassion, reverence,
and empathy. Authentic
spiritual care is understanding everyone has a story and
a need to tell it. Spiritual care is about knowing
that one’s spiritual dimension has two components. A
vertical dimension which involves a relationship with a Divine
Source, a Higher Power or God and a horizontal dimension
which involves a relationship with others, community, music,
art and communing with nature.
In providing
specialized spiritual care, Debra has been able to assist
people in living life to the fullest, discovering new gifts
that were buried deep within. Debra’s
commitment to spiritual care and the sacredness of life,
illness and dying is to unite spiritual and religious rituals
and practices and to raise the awareness of the way society
observes and experiences the sacredness of life and of dying.
