Spirituality is not:

• an idea that has no connection with clinical practice: spirituality has clinical significance. In order to care for people it is necessary to know what their illness is in a technical medical sense. It is, however, crucial to know and be able to recognise what the meaning of the illness is at the personal level; it is not enough to know what an illness is without also recognising what it may or may not mean to unique individuals. Meaning matters
• just about religious beliefs and practices: spirituality is something that applies to people of all faiths and none. Within health care conversations around spirituality, people have come to separate spirituality from religion. Thus people can be spiritual, but not necessarily religious. As you will see, this perspective on the term ‘spirituality’ is clearly intended to be open to all people. That is not to say that religious people do not have spirituality
• something that is only important for chaplains: chaplaincy is a vital and important aspect of spiritual care. However, chaplaincy is not the only discipline that benefits from understanding and recognising what spirituality is and how it functions in the lives of people experiencing illness and distress. Spirituality relates to all of the health care disciplines. However, chaplains do have specific expertise within the area of spirituality and should be perceived both as experts in the field and as vital a resource for teaching and educating other health care professionals about spirituality. Spirituality is a multidisciplinary issue
• only important for patients: while learning to recognise the spiritual is vital for patients, learning to see the importance of the spiritual within carers is equally as important. Carers are spiritual people and learning to work with one’s own spirituality within a caring context is a vital tool for holistic care; to care well, one needs to be cared for well
• about imposing your own beliefs and values on another: to suggest that the spirituality of carers is important is not to suggest that it is in any way appropriate for carers to impose their values and beliefs on patients in situations where they are clearly vulnerable.

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