Main description:

The relationship between spirituality and healthcare is historical, intellectual and practical, and it has now emerged as a significant field in health research, healthcare policy and clinical practice and training. Understanding health and wellbeing requires addressing spiritual and existential issues, and healthcare is therefore challenged to respond to the ways spirituality is experienced and expressed in illness, suffering, healing and loss. If healthcare has
compassionate regard for the humanity of those it serves, it is faced with questions about how it understands and interprets spirituality, what resources it should make available and how these are organised, and the ways in which spirituality shapes and informs the purpose and practice of healthcare?
These questions are the basis for this resource, which presents a coherent field of enquiry, discussion and debate that is interdisciplinary, international and vibrant.

There is a growing corpus of articles in medical and healthcare journals on spirituality in addition to a wide range of literature, but there has been no attempt so far to publish a standard text on this subject. Spirituality in Healthcare is an authoritative reference on the subject providing unequalled coverage, critical depth and an integrated source of key topics. Divided into six sections including practice, research, policy and training, the project brings together international
contributions from scholars in the field to provide a unique and stimulating resource.

Contents:

Forward ; Preface ; I Traditions ; 1. Medicine and Religion: A historical perspective ; 2. Buddhism: Perspectives for the contemporary world ; 3. Chinese Religion: Taoism ; 4. Christianity ; 5. Feminist Spirituality ; 6. Indian Religion and the Ayurvedic Tradition ; 7. . The Western Humanist Tradition ; 8. Indigenous Spiritualties ; 9. Islam ; 10. Judaism ; 11. 'New Age' Spirituality ; 12. Philosophy ; 13. Secularism ; 14. Sikhism ; II Concepts ; 15. Healthcare spirituality: A question of knowledge ; 16. Personhood ; 17. Belief ; 18. Hope ; 19. Meaning Making ; 20. Compassion: Luxury or Necessity? ; 21. Dignity: A Novel Path into the Spiritual Landscape of the Human Heart ; 22. Cure and Healing ; 23. Suffering ; 24. Ritual ; 25. Culture and Religion ; III Practice ; 26. Models of Spiritual Care ; 27. Healthcare Chaplaincy ; 28. Complementary, Alternative and Integrative Medicine ; 29. Restorative Medicine ; 30. Nursing ; 31. Faith Community (Parish) Nursing ; 32. Psychiatry and Mental Health Treatment ; 33. Social Work ; 34. Care of Children ; 35. Care of elderly people ; 36. Palliative Care ; 37. Spirituality and the arts: Discovering what really matters ; 38. Care of the Soul ; 39. Counselling ; 40. Dignity Conserving Care ; 41. Pastoral Theology in healthcare settings: Blessed irritant for holistic human care ; 42. Next Steps for spiritual assessment in healthcare ; IV Research ; 43. Methodology ; 44. Measures ; 45. On the links between religion and health: What has empirical research taught us? ; 46. Quality of Life ; 47. Cognitive Sciences: A perspective on spirituality and religious experience ; 48. Spiritual Well-Being Scale: Mental and Physical Health Relationships ; 49. Prayer and Meditation ; 50. Resiliency and Coping ; 51. Spiritual experience, practice and community ; 52. Policy ; 53. Healthcare Organizations: Corporate spirituality ; 54. Utility and Commissioning of Spiritual Carers ; 55. Social Care ; 56. Curriculum Development, Courses and CPE ; 57. Competences in spiritual care education and training ; 58. Guidance from the Humanities for Professional Formation ; 59. Training and Formation: A case study ; 60. Interdisciplinary teamwork ; 61. Ethical Principles for Spiritual Care ; VI Challenges ; 62. Contemporary Spirituality ; 63. The Future of Religion ; 64. The Future of Spirituality and Healthcare