{"title":"Conversation as a Bridging Tool in End of Life Spiritual Care","authors":"Caroline Yih","doi":"10.1558/hscc.20932","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"End of life care is a holistic approach to the provision of treatment and support for dying patients and families. It focuses on four dimensions: the physical, social, psychological and spiritual. In relation to the latter dimension, healthcare professionals are joined by spiritual care specialists, namely, chaplains. Even though great strides have been made towards holistic provision, chaplains remain marginalized. This article focuses on one essential yet often overlooked tool utilized by chaplains in spiritual care, and it showcases the fundamental importance of the practice in holistic end of life delivery, using Hong Kong chaplaincy as a case study: conversation as a bridging tool. Specifically, I focus on three distinctive aspects: conversation to overcome the challenges created by the chaplain’s role ambiguity, conversation to bridge cultural and linguistic limitations, and conversation to address death anxieties through narrational encounters, including conversations about dreams. Despite the value of conversation in end of life care, this article illustrates that the wider hospital care team has a strong negative perception of chaplains’ use of conversation, contributing to the marginalized status of chaplains.","PeriodicalId":37483,"journal":{"name":"Health and Social Care Chaplaincy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2022-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"1","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Health and Social Care Chaplaincy","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1558/hscc.20932","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"Arts and Humanities","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 1
Abstract
End of life care is a holistic approach to the provision of treatment and support for dying patients and families. It focuses on four dimensions: the physical, social, psychological and spiritual. In relation to the latter dimension, healthcare professionals are joined by spiritual care specialists, namely, chaplains. Even though great strides have been made towards holistic provision, chaplains remain marginalized. This article focuses on one essential yet often overlooked tool utilized by chaplains in spiritual care, and it showcases the fundamental importance of the practice in holistic end of life delivery, using Hong Kong chaplaincy as a case study: conversation as a bridging tool. Specifically, I focus on three distinctive aspects: conversation to overcome the challenges created by the chaplain’s role ambiguity, conversation to bridge cultural and linguistic limitations, and conversation to address death anxieties through narrational encounters, including conversations about dreams. Despite the value of conversation in end of life care, this article illustrates that the wider hospital care team has a strong negative perception of chaplains’ use of conversation, contributing to the marginalized status of chaplains.
期刊介绍:
Health and Social Care Chaplaincy is a peer-reviewed, international journal that assists health and social care chaplains to explore the art and science of spiritual care within a variety of contexts. The journal was founded in 2013 through the merger of the Journal of Health Care Chaplaincy (issn:1748-801X) and the Scottish Journal of Healthcare Chaplaincy (issn:1463-9920) . It continues to be the official journal of the College of Health Care Chaplains and members of the society receive the journal as part of their annual membership. For more details on membership subscriptions, please click on the ''members'' button at the top of this page. Back issues of both previous journals are being loaded onto this website (see Archives) and online access to these back issues is included in all institutional subscriptions. Health and Social Care Chaplaincy is a multidisciplinary forum for the discussion of a range of issues related to the delivery of spiritual care across various settings: acute, paediatric, mental health, palliative care and community. It encourages a creative collaboration and interface between health and social care practitioners in the UK and internationally and consolidates different traditions of discourse and communication research in its commitment to an understanding of psychosocial, cultural and ethical aspects of healthcare in contemporary societies. It is responsive to both ecumenical and interfaith agendas as well as those from a humanist perspective.