Spirituality and palliative care

Marc Desmet

Vol 2, No 4 (2003): Polish Palliative Medicine

Artykuły poglądowe

Published online: 2003-09-30

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Spirituality and palliative care

Marc Desmet

Advances in Palliative Medicine 2003;2(4):251-266.

Vol 2, No 4 (2003): Polish Palliative Medicine

Artykuły poglądowe

Published online: 2003-09-30

Abstract

In this article I give an original description of what happens on a spiritual level in palliative care. This description has been recognized and confirmed by many caregivers throughout lectures and sessions given for years. Spirituality refers here to a way of living and dying as far as it is rooted in a spiritual view. But what is meant by "spiritual"? A good definition could be: "spiritual" relates to the dynamic which places human beings within a horizon of sense (or non-sense) while "religious" relates to that dynamic as far as it is lived as a personal relationship with a transcendent being. But speaking to practitioners and clinicians it seems more appropriate to evoke the meaning of "spiritual" in a phenomenological, a rather practical and "clinical" way as "more than...".