If patients are to receive comprehensive and empathetic care, the focus should not only be on symptoms and diagnoses. It is just as important to understand what an illness means for the person in the hospital bed and how the new situation can be dealt with. The book is a plea for Christian healthcare chaplaincy...
If patients are to receive comprehensive and empathetic care, the focus should not only be on symptoms and diagnoses. It is just as important to understand what an illness means for the person in the hospital bed and how the new situation can be dealt with. The book is a plea for Christian healthcare chaplaincy to be profiled as specialised spiritual care and to be understood anew within the horizon of the Christian healing mission. Only in close cooperation with healthcare professionals can it continue to fulfil its mission and promote just and humane healthcare.
Is healthcare chaplaincy a health profession? This book argues that it is. It is a plea for Christian healthcare chaplaincy to be practiced as a form of specialized spiritual care, and to be understood anew within the horizon of the Christian call for healing. Only in close cooperation with other healthcare professionals, it is argued, can healthcare chaplaincy fulfil its mission and promote encompassing and evidence-based care for patients and their relatives. And only by recentering on their spiritual resources, can Christian healthcare chaplains contribute in their own unique way to healing processes and to coping with illness, dying, and grief.
Simon Peng-Keller is Professor of Spiritual Care at the University of Zurich. From 2016 to 2020, he was a chaplain at the Competence Centre for Palliative Care at Zurich University Hospital. He lectures as a visiting professor for theology of spirituality at the Theological University of Chur. Together with his wife, he also works as a retreat leader at Lassalle-Haus in Chur and at the St. Peter Spiritual Centre.
