2. Treating Spiritual Distress

Ways of treating spiritual distress.

2.1 Who Really cares: Select a problem case with four or five characters from your own experience or from the Bible and rank the characters from the best caring to the least caring.

2.2 Spiritual Questions: Consider the following spiritual questions and state under what circumstances each question would be most helpful.
What is the source of your strength?  What do you live for?  What are the most important things in your life?  What gives meaning to your life?  How are you progressing in your spiritual life?  How do your try to keep harmony with yourself ?

2.3. The Grief Process: Review a case of grief and state how the five steps are related to the experience: denial, bargaining, anger, depression, and acceptance.

2.4. Dealing With Guilt: James Dobson summarizes his discussion on guilt by drawing the following conclusions:

God is not the author of all feelings of guilt. The absence of guilt feelings does not necessarily mean we are blameless before God. Therefore, the conscience is not absolutely valid in its representation of divine approval and disapproval. However, Romans 9:1 teaches that the conscience is a tool of the Holy Spirit and is often enlightened by Him.  The conscience, then, is a valuable asset to the Christian rather than a defect to be overcome. We must interpret its messages with greater perceptiveness.  When feelings of guilt are reflective of God's disapproval, they can be validated by the test of the intellect and the will.  The conscience is largely a gift of one's parents, which places a tremendous responsibility on mothers and fathers to handle that assignment judiciously. Regardless of what we feel, the ultimate test of one's acceptability to our Lord is found in Romans 8:1: 'There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.' (KJV)." (Dobson, 1980, p. 40-41.)

2.5. Corinthian Caring Test: After studying I Cor. 13:4-7, write a 1 (for weak), 2, 3, 4, or 5 (for strong) in the space after each word to indicate your present level of caring. I am patient I am kind 1 envy no one_, I am not boastful I I am not conceited 9 1 am not rude_, I am not selfish 9 1 do not take offense_, I keep no score of wrong-, I do not gloat over others' wrongs_, I delight in truth. Add your score. If your total score is below 22, you can greatly improve your caring. If your score is above 44, you may be a very caring person.

2.6. Spiritual Entities: Clarify your personal relationship to death, terminal illness, suffering, forgiveness, material goods, God, the altruistic love of a friend/family member, and/or miracles, etc.

2.7. Questions About My Spiritual Life: Orally, or on a separate paper, answer the following questions:  How do I show care?  How do others see me? What holds me back? What are my weakest areas of service? What am I most selfish in? What am I most altruistic in?

2.8. Counseling Questions: Consider a specific case and answer the following questions. Who needs care?  What does the person need? When does the person need care? How can you meet the person's needs?

2.9. Spiritual Resources: Describe 1) the spiritual resources you have available to you, 2) how your physical, mental, and social resources supplement and complete your spiritual resources, and 3) the adequacy or lack or adequacy of those resources.

2.10. Discussion: Discuss the appropriateness and use of various tools of mental, social, and spiritual health therapies: role playing, communication exercises, behavior modification, contracting, values clarification, reality therapy, family therapy, group therapy,
recreational therapy, stress management, and conflict management. People who really trust me: People whom I can fully trust: The "wrongs" others did to me that I have never forgiven: My "wrongs" others have not forgiven me: I am: My three great hopes are: My strong areas of service are:

2.11. Case Presentation And Analysis: Present an experience you have had in meeting a spiritual need of a person. Give the appropriate background. After the presentation, identify a) the parts that suggested spiritual needs, b) the spiritual need(s) you tried to meet, c) the tools you used, d) the appropriateness of the tools, and e) planning for further spiritual care.

2.12. Consider this Person: Select a person-biblical or other. Consider his/her needs of spiritual care and describe a) his or her history including physical, emotional, social, and spiritual needs; b) his/her personal states apparent in each of the four areas; c) tools appropriate for meeting each of his/her needs; d) ways you would use those tools in each area; and e) the evaluation of the case.

2.13. Interview With Chaplain/Pastor: Interview a chaplain /pastor, asking about his ministry, services, role, referrals, relationship with other helpers, and ways the relationship with other helpers can be improved.

2.14. Use Of Care-Scriptures: a) Read the following texts, b) select cases from your own experience for each text, and c) discover how you would use these scriptures to provide spiritual care. Matt. 28:18-20 (Disciple-making) H Peter 1:1-11 (Self-perception) Philip. 4 (Understanding People) Romans t4:10-13 ( Helping ) Job 1:1-2, 11 (Emergencies) I Cor. 7:2-5, 26 (Counseling) Exodus 18 (Finding Help) Ephesians 4 (Fitting Together) Ephesians 5 (Helping Yourself) Matt. 5:1-1-6 (Caring Characteristics)

2.15. Care Scripture Cards: for reading, memorizing, and/or giving away. Colossians 3:16-17; Revelation 8:18; John 14:27; Isaiah 55:22; Joshua 1:9; Isaiah 40:11; Psalms 147:3; Deuteronomy 33:27; Proverbs 3:5-6; Psalms 27:14; Isaiah 26:7; Matthew 11:28-29;

2.16. Use of Prayer: Consider the use of prayer. First prayerfully listen to the needs of others. Then enjoy the love conversation with God, express feelings, express concerns/hopes, be brief, use the person's names, express specifics, such as matters for praise and/or request, and feel free to use the Lord's Prayer when appropriate. Worship is appropriate in the home, church, chapel, hospital, camp, or many other places. The Lord's Supper can be a very meaningful, special type of caring.

2.17. Prayer: Describe a case and the spiritual needs involved. Then present a prayer appropriate for the situation. Each prayer ends with Amen. Blessed Lord, be very kind to Grant our friend courage of soul, peace of mind, and speedy recovery to health, if it pleases you. Amen.  Dear Lord, When I think of your love and patience, I just want to thank you and praise you and rest in your strong, protecting arms. I know that you will help me through these next few days. I know that you will look after me both on the mountaintops and in the valleys. Amen. Lord, In a world of turmoil and strife, in a life of fear and anger, there is no room for peace. Knowing you, I no longer fear Trusting you, I let go of my anger Loving you, I receive your gift of peace Amen. May the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and mind in the knowledge and love of God and of His Son Jesus Christ. Amen. Now unto Him that is able to guard you from stumbling and set you before the presence of glory without blemish in exceeding joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and power, before all time, and now, and forever more. Amen. Almighty God, Make us conscious of your love that daily surrounds us, that continually supports us, and that now gives us hope. Overshadow our bodies, minds, and souls with Thy strengthening and healing presence. Amen. My Redeemer and my Lord, I beseech Thee, I entreat Thee, Guide me in each act and word, That hereafter I may meet Thee, Watching, waiting, hoping, yearning, With my lamp well trimmed and burning. Amen. (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) Dear Lord, Take me just as I am and make something beautiful out of me. Recreate me not because I'm deserving, but because you're forgiving and loving, and I fully trust your love. Amen. Lord, Walk with me into the unknown of tomorrow, and hold my hand tight. Because you are my Maker and God, I'm thankful for yesterday and today and confident of a blessed tomorrow. Amen. Lord, I stumbled again and fell flat on my face because I have rushed on, without listening to those around me and without looking up to you. I have been too busy with my poor hurt self. Now help me to notice and hear your sustaining love all around me. Amen.

2.18. Care Cards For Spiritual Care: Car may be appropriate in many spiritual care situations. If their use is well considered and planned, they may serve a valuable purpose. If used indiscriminately and without proper design, at times some of the cards may be very inappropriate. They are here presented only as suggestions. Many other cards may be designed and presented in a printed or handwritten form. Examples:  I'm Jesus is actively helping me solve my problems. He wants to help you too.

2.19. Care Poem Cards: For reading, memorizing, and/or giving away. He prays well, who loves well both man and bird and beast. He prays best, who loves best All things both great and small; For the dear God who loves us, He made and loves all. (Samuel Taylor Coleridge) So stood of old the Holy Christ Amidst the suffering throng; With whom this lightest touch suffered To make the weakest strong. That healing gift He lends to them Who use it in His name; The power that filled His garment's hem Is evermore the same. (John Greenleaf Whittier) God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

2.20. Use the four languages of caring.

2.21 An Outline of Spiritual Care Plan Options:

 3. The Four Languages of Caring

We may not be saying much, but we talk much. We talk incessantly with our facial expressions, our words, our actions, the things we touch physically or symbolically. Not only do we talk through these media, we also listen with our eyes, our ears, our fingers. To care is to communicate. Communication takes place through the four languages of caring or the strange sounds and sights of carelessness. Everyone with good motives can learn to communicate through the four languages of caring.

The four languages, in order to communicate real caring, must present the same message through those four channels. If our action language violates our sound language, nobody will believe that we really care. As we speak the four languages of caring we incorporate our strengths, our weaknesses, our alternatives, our empathy, our vulnerability, our humility and our commitment.

  3.1 Body Language

We communicate a great deal of information expressions, posture, and our Through our sex, status, our status, our profession, this can supportive fashion. through our facial our tears, our hair style, our our movements, our clothing, physical properties in general. body language we tell people our race, often our marital general age, our emotional socio-economic level, our and many more things. All
be communicated in a way or a superior, distracting

  3.2 Sound Language

Normally we think of language as words and sounds. But it also includes the symbols that stand for sounds, such as numbers, letters, musical notes, etc. It also includes the songs we sing, the whistles, the groans, the clearing of the throat, the humming of a tune, or the playing of a musical instrument.

Sound communication and its symbols used in writing are our most common and accepted form of communication. We speak and we listen. It is not only the content, but also the style, form, and manner that count. All these can contribute to communicating caring or non-caring .

  3.3 Action Language

Our actions speak louder than our words. The way we spend our time, our funds, our responses, our health tell much about us. It is in our visiting, in our helping, in our giving, in our working, in our struggling, that we demonstrate that the caring languages are real. Our actions speak louder than our words. The gifts we give, the letters we write, the kindness we r-ender, the helping time we spend, the meals we share are all actions that can communicate spiritual care. Most acts are not caring or uncaring by themselves. They become so as they are invested with meaning by the care-giver. Thus most actions performed in the line of duty may be care-actions and communicate a caring attitude. Faithfulness and sensitivity are two important characteristics associated with caring action-language.

 3.4 Touch Language

Of all the languages, the touch language can be the most intimate and also the most destructive; the most tender and the most cruel. Lovers speak it, football players speak it, nurses speak it, and so do murderers. We communicate by touch-language when we shake hands, grasp a book, scratch an itch, tag in a game, pinch or slap, push or hit, embrace or kiss. Backslapping, cheek-tweaking, hair-mussing, and the laying on of hands are other forms of touch-language.

In 1921, J.L. Taylor wrote that, "The greatest sense in our body is our touch sense. It is probably the chief sense in the processes of sleeping and waking; it gives us our knowledge of depth or thickness and form; we feel, we love and hate, are touchy and are touched, through the touch corpuscles of our skin." (Taylor, 1921, p. 157.)

Besides communicating concern and affection, touch has important physiological dimensions. Ashley

Montagu, in his book Touching: -The Human Significance of the Skin states: "The self-licking in which many mammals indulge, in the non-pregnant state, while having the effect of keeping the animal clean, is probably more specifically designed to keep the sustaining systems of the body-the gastrointestinal, genitourinary, respiratory, circulatory, reproductive, nervous, and endocrine systems-adequately stimulated. (Montagu, 1971,p. 20.)

The child's first contact with the world is through touch-language with the mother. When this touch-language is not used, the breathing, nutritional, and other functions of the child are impaired and the child dies. When there is much positive and loving touch-language, the child's physical, mental, and spiritual health is enhanced. Kabongo, a Kikiyu chief of East Africa, at the age of 80 described touch-language with his mother beautifully: "'My early years are connected in my mind with my mother. At first she was always there; I can her body as she carried me on her back and the smell of her skin in the hot sun. Everything came from her. When I was hungry or thirsty she would swing me
round to where I could reach her full breasts; now when I shut my eyes I feel again with gratitude the sense of well- being that I had when I buried my head in their softness and drank the sweet milk that they gave. At night when there was no sun to warm me, her body took its
place; and as I grew older and more interested in other things, from my safe place on her back I could watch without fear as I wanted and when sleep overcame me I had only to close my eyes.'

'Everything came from her.' These are the key words. They imply warmth, support, security, satisfaction of thirst and hunger, comfort, well-being, the very satisfactions that every baby must experience at its mother's breast."

"It is through body contact with the mother that the child makes its first contact with the world, through which he is enfolded in a new dimension of experience, the experience of the world of the other. It is this bodily contact with the other that provides the essential source of comfort, security, warmth, and increasing aptitude for new experiences." (Montaou, 1971, p. 91.)

The touch-language communicates emotions and interest with the feeling of the hand or other body parts. While it can be spoken with any part of. the body, touch is especially developed in the tips of the fingers and the lips. Braille, a special touch-language for blind individuals, is designed to take advantage of the finger-tip sensitivity.

Some cultures are characterized by a do not touch me attitude. Caretaking and nurturing, rather than love and affection, is the remember the comforting feel of general basis of the American mother-child touch-language. Other cultures use touch-language much more freely.

Americans have translated much of the touch-language into the sound language. "We speak of 'rubbing' people the wrong way, and 'stroking' them the right way. We say of someone that he has 'a happy touch,' of another that he is ?a soft touch,' and of still another that he has 'the human touch.' We get into 'touch' or 'contact' with others. Some people have to be 'handled' carefully with kid gloves'). Some are 'thick-skinned,' others are 'thin-skinned,' some get 'under one's skin,' while others remain only 'skin-deep,' and things are either 'palpably' or 'tangibly' so or not. Some people are 'touchy,' that is, oversensitive or easily given to anger. The 'feel' of a thing is important to us in more ways than one; and 'feeling' for another embodies much of the kind of experience which we have ourselves undergone through the skin. A deeply felt experience is 'touching.' We say of some people that they are 'tactful' and of others that they are 'tactless,' that is, either having or not having the delicate sense of what is fitting and proper in dealing with others." (Montagu, 1971, p. 5.)

Caring can be communicated appropriately through touch-language. The general rules that guide all caring communication guide touch-language. It will be perceived negatively when too strong, too long, and too intimate for the occasion. It will be perceived as caring when performed with great sensitivity, honesty, and real caring.

Bibliography

Belknop, M.M., R.A. Blav, and R.N. Grossman. Case Studies and Methods in Humanistic Medical Care. San Francisco, CA: Institute for the Study of Humanistic Medicine, 1975.

Boshear, Walton C., and Karl G. Albert. Understand People: Models and Concept. La Jolla, CA: University Associates, Inc., 1977.

Burley-Allen, Madelyn. Listening: The Forgotten Skill. New York, NY: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1982.

Collins, G. People Helper Growth Book. Nashville, TN: Vision House Publishers, 1976.

Combs, A.W., D.L. Avia, and W.W. Purkey. Helping Relationships, 2nd Ed. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon, Inc., 1978.

Davis, M. Charles. "Another Look at Spiritual Assessments." Bulletin, American Protestant HOSDital Association, Special Edition On Pastoral Care, 45:3. Schaumburg, IL: 1981.

Dickinson, Corita. "The Search For Spiritual Meaning." American Journal of Nursing, 75:10 (1975)y 1789-1794.

Dobson, James. Emotions: Can You Trust Them? Ventura, CA: Regal Books, G/L Publications, 1980.

Dunn, David. Try Giving Yourself Away. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Han, 1970.

Fish, Sharon and Judith Allen Shelly. Spiritual Care: The Nurse's Role. Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Pess, 1978.

Francis, G.M. and B.M. Munjas. Promoting Psychological Comfort. Dubuque, IA: Wm. C. Brown Company Publishers, 1979.

Gray, M.V. Soul-Winning Helps. Mountain View, CA: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1975.

Green, L.W., M.W. Krevter, S.G. Deeds, and K.B. Partrige. Health Education Planning, A Diagnostic Approach. Palo Alto, CA: Mayfield Publishing Company, 1980.

Kinnaid, W.M. Joy Comes with the Morning, A Handbook for Christian Encouragement and Affirmation. Waco, TX: Word Books, 1979.

Leininger, M. "The Phenomena of Caring." American Nurse Foundation, 12:2 (1977), p. 215. May, Rollo. Man's Search for Himself.

Mayeroff, Milton. On Caring, New York, NY: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1971.

McClure, Diana L. "Wellness: A Holistic Concept." Health Values: Achieving High Level Wellness, 6:5 (1982), pp. 23-27.

McCormick, Tom, Penny, Editors. Nursing Home Ministries. Philadephia, PA: Great Commission Publications, 1982.

McGinnis, A.L. The Friendship Factor. Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Publishing House, 1979.

Montagu, Ashley. Touching: The Human Significance of the Skin. New York, NY:

O'Brien, Mary Elizabeth. "The Need for Spiritual Integrity," in Human Needs 2 and the

Nursing Process. Eds. Helen Yura and Mary B. Walsh. Norwalk, CT: AppletonCentury7C-rofts, 1982.

Peck, Mary Lou. "The Therapeutic Effect of Faith." Nursing Forum, 20:2 (1981), pp.153-168.

Rosenthal, T.T. "The Construction of a Relationship." Health Values: Achieving High Level Wellness, 6:5 (1982).

Shelly, Judith Allen. Spiritual Care Workbook. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1978.

Sugarman, Daniel A. Priceless Gifts. New York, NY: McMillan Publishing Co., 1978.

Summerlin, F.A. Religion and Mental Health A Bibliograph . Rockville, MD: National Institute of Mental Health, 1980.

White, Ellen G. Ministry of Healing. Mountain View, CA: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1942.

Spiritual Care Library

NURSES CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP: Home page of NCF in NSW
 

 Test  

Study this web-site for 3 hours for an approved (RN-CEP 11430, MFT- PCE 39) 3-hours Continuing Education Certificate (0.3 CEUs). Click here for the self-correcting test & online payment, and 2) receive your certificate immediately online. All is online, nothing by post-mail.