Reclaiming ritual in palliative care: A hermeneutic narrative review.
Palliative & supportive care January 27, 2025 Chrystabel Butler, Natasha Michael, David Kissane 6 citations
Spiritual care is critical to palliative care, yet comprehensive interventions are lacking, especially for the growing number of people in Western secular societies who identify as 'no religion' or 'spiritual but not religious.' A hermeneutic narrative review, inspired by complexity theory, found that a fundamental spiritual need in postmodern post-Christian secularism is for embodied spiritual experience, which has been lost alongside the historical decline of ritual. Ritual, as a mind-body practice, can provide such experience. Ritual originates from evolutionarily adaptive behaviors that develop emotional regulation and conceptual cognition, and its mechanisms allow connection to others and the transcendent. Understanding these mechanisms enables anyone to create personally meaningful rituals as self-empowering, client-centered spiritual care without relying on experts or institutional programs.