Spirituality in the Healthcare Workplace
Journal Title: Religions - Year 2017, Vol 8, Issue 12
Abstract
Spirituality involves a sense of connectedness, meaning making and transcendence. There is abundant published research that focuses on the importance of spirituality to patients and their families during times of illness and distress. However over the last decade there has also been a growing awareness about the importance of considering the need to address peoples’ spiritual needs in the workplace. Engaging in ones own personal spirituality involves connecting with the inner self, becoming more self aware of ones humanity and limitations. Engaging with ones personal spirituality can also mean that people begin to greater find meaning and purpose in life and at work. This may be demonstrated in the workplace by collegial relationships and teamwork. Those who engage with their own spirituality also engage more easily with others through a connectedness with other staff and by aligning their values with the respective organization if they fit well with ones personal values. Workplace spirituality is oriented towards self-awareness of an inner life which gives meaning, purpose and nourishment to the employees’ dynamic relationships at the workplace and is eventually also nourished by meaningful work. Exercising ones personal spirituality contributes towards generating workplace spirituality. Essentially acting from ones own personal spirituality framework by being in doing can contribute towards a person becoming a healing and therapeutic presence for others, that is nourishing in many workplaces. Personal spirituality in healthcare can be enhanced by: reflection in and on action; role-modeling; taking initiative for active presence in care; committing oneself to the spiritual dimension of care; and, integrating spirituality in health caregivers’ education. As spirituality is recognized as becoming increasingly important for patients in healthcare, increasing educational opportunities are now becoming available for nurses internationally that could support personal and workplace spirituality.
Authors and Affiliations
Donia Baldacchino
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP25851
- DOI https://doi.org/10.3390/rel8120260
- Views 300
- Downloads 15
Meaning-Making, Religiousness and Spirituality in Religiously Founded Substance Misuse Services—A Qualitative Study of Staff and Patients’ Experiences
The Norwegian health authorities buy one third of their addiction treatment from private institutions run by organizations and trusts. Several of these are founded on religious values. The aim of the study was to inves...
Sin and Addiction: Conceptual Enemies or Fellow Travelers?
The addiction recovery metaphor of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and the sin/salvation metaphor of Protestant heritage have a lot more in common than people realize. On the surface, of course, it seems that the addiction r...
Plato’s Visible God: The Cosmic Soul Reflected in the Heavens
Although Plato states that the perceptible god that he describes in Timaeus is visible to the human eye, the reflection of the Cosmic Soul in the heavens has largely been explained away or forgotten in the Western mind...
Secular Volunteerism among Texan Emerging Adults: Exploring Pathways of Childhood and Adulthood Religiosity
Prior research suggests that religiosity, especially public religious participation, is related to greater volunteerism. However, less is known about religious transmission across the life course, in particular whether...
Transcendence Un-Extra-Ordinaire: Bringing the Atheistic I Down to Earth
I examine challenges to images of a personal god definitive for normatively policed theism (often called “traditional theism”), questioning whether a subject can be conscious of a transcendent being. I examine the chal...