Can Cognitive Science Rescue ‘Spiritual Care’ from a Metaphysical Backwater?: An Argument for More Theory

‘Spiritual care’ has a valued but precarious place in contemporary UK health care. Although the term is widely used, it only attracts significant attention and resources related to care at the end of life; elsewhere, spiritual care is often under-resourced and perfunctory. The author argues that a m...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Kevern, Peter (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group 2013
In: Journal for the Study of Spirituality
Year: 2013, Volume: 3, Issue: 1, Pages: 8-17
Further subjects:B Health
B Spiritual care
B Religion
B Cognitive Psychology
Online Access: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Description
Summary:‘Spiritual care’ has a valued but precarious place in contemporary UK health care. Although the term is widely used, it only attracts significant attention and resources related to care at the end of life; elsewhere, spiritual care is often under-resourced and perfunctory. The author argues that a major reason for this is that proponents of spiritual care have so far failed to speak a language comprehensible to practitioners and health managers more familiar with reductionist, evidence-based work. He proposes that current developments in the cognitive and evolutionary psychology of religion have the potential to provide such a language, and to refocus a subject that has been muddled by conceptual vagueness and the multiplication of assessment tools. As a result, attention to spirituality could be liberated from its current ghetto in palliative and long-term care and become more firmly embedded and integrated into everyday nursing practice.
ISSN:2044-0251
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal for the Study of Spirituality
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1179/2044024313Z.0000000001