- Title Pages
- Disclaimer
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Dying of Cancer
- 2 Should a Patient Know … ?
- 3 When a Patient is Dying
- 4 The Management of Patients in the Terminal Stage
- 5 And From Sudden Death…
- 6 A Patient
- 7 the Care of the Dying
- 8 Terminal Illness
- 9 Working at St. Joseph's Hospice Hackney
- 10 The Treatment of Intractable Pain In Terminal Cancer
- 11 Distress in Dying
- 12 The Depths and the Possible Heights
- 13 The Need for Institutional Care for the Patient with Advanced Cancer
- 14 the Last Stages of Life
- 15 the Last Frontier
- 16 The Management of Terminal Illness
- 17 St. Christopher's Hospice
- 18 Training for the Practice of Clinical Gerontology: The Role of Social Medicine
- 19 A Place to Die
- 20 Dimensions of Death
- 21 The Problem of Euthanasia (Care of the Dying—1)
- 22 Appropriate Treatment, Appropriate Death
- 23 The Philosophy of Terminal Care
- 24 Templeton Prize Speech
- 25 Current Views on Pain Relief and Terminal Care
- 26 Heroin and Morphine In Advanced Cancer
- 27 Pain and Impending Death
- 28 On Dying Well
- 29 Evaluation of Hospice Activities
- 30 The Modern Hospice
- 31 Foreword (<i>Pain: an Exploration</i>)
- 32 Spiritual Pain
- 33 Hospice—a Meeting Place for Religion and Science
- 34 Letter (On Alfred Worcester)
- 35 Voluntary Euthanasia
- 36 Foreword (<i>Mortally Wounded:Stories of Soul Pain, Death, and Healing</i>)
- 37 Why I Welcome TV Cameras at the Death Bed
- 38 Foreword (Good Practices In Palliative Care: A Psychosocial Perspective)
- 39 Origins: International Perspectives, Then and Now
- 40 the Evolution of Palliative Care
- 41 A Voice for the Voiceless
- 42 The Evolution of Palliative Care
- 43 Foreword (Oxford Textbook of Palliative Medicine)
- 44 Introduction (<i>Management of Advanced Disease</i>)
- Index
Spiritual Pain
Spiritual Pain
First published in Journal of Palliative Care, vol. 4, no. 3 (1988), pp. 29–32.
- Chapter:
- (p.217) 32 Spiritual Pain
- Source:
- Cicely Saunders
- Author(s):
Cicely Saunders
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
In 1988, Cicely Saunders published a journal article on spiritual pain, reproduced here. She examines how in the care of the individual in pain, there must be attention to the body, to the family, and to the patient's inner life. For this, expertise in symptom control is required, as well as group understanding, together with an ability to make sense of the inner concerns and values of the person. Above all, there is a need to engage with ‘the whole area of thought concerning moral values throughout life’ — this she defines as ‘the spiritual’. Where a desolate sense of meaninglessness is encountered by the person at the end of life, here, she declares, one finds the essence of ‘spiritual pain’.
Keywords: symptom control, spiritual pain, inner life, moral values, meaninglessness
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- Title Pages
- Disclaimer
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Dying of Cancer
- 2 Should a Patient Know … ?
- 3 When a Patient is Dying
- 4 The Management of Patients in the Terminal Stage
- 5 And From Sudden Death…
- 6 A Patient
- 7 the Care of the Dying
- 8 Terminal Illness
- 9 Working at St. Joseph's Hospice Hackney
- 10 The Treatment of Intractable Pain In Terminal Cancer
- 11 Distress in Dying
- 12 The Depths and the Possible Heights
- 13 The Need for Institutional Care for the Patient with Advanced Cancer
- 14 the Last Stages of Life
- 15 the Last Frontier
- 16 The Management of Terminal Illness
- 17 St. Christopher's Hospice
- 18 Training for the Practice of Clinical Gerontology: The Role of Social Medicine
- 19 A Place to Die
- 20 Dimensions of Death
- 21 The Problem of Euthanasia (Care of the Dying—1)
- 22 Appropriate Treatment, Appropriate Death
- 23 The Philosophy of Terminal Care
- 24 Templeton Prize Speech
- 25 Current Views on Pain Relief and Terminal Care
- 26 Heroin and Morphine In Advanced Cancer
- 27 Pain and Impending Death
- 28 On Dying Well
- 29 Evaluation of Hospice Activities
- 30 The Modern Hospice
- 31 Foreword (<i>Pain: an Exploration</i>)
- 32 Spiritual Pain
- 33 Hospice—a Meeting Place for Religion and Science
- 34 Letter (On Alfred Worcester)
- 35 Voluntary Euthanasia
- 36 Foreword (<i>Mortally Wounded:Stories of Soul Pain, Death, and Healing</i>)
- 37 Why I Welcome TV Cameras at the Death Bed
- 38 Foreword (Good Practices In Palliative Care: A Psychosocial Perspective)
- 39 Origins: International Perspectives, Then and Now
- 40 the Evolution of Palliative Care
- 41 A Voice for the Voiceless
- 42 The Evolution of Palliative Care
- 43 Foreword (Oxford Textbook of Palliative Medicine)
- 44 Introduction (<i>Management of Advanced Disease</i>)
- Index
