It is time to stop looking for spiritual needs!

In Spiritual Assessment, it is time to stop looking for Spiritual Needs! We’ve been trying to find spiritual needs for a long time in the Spiritual

Care field: And it hasn’t worked! It hasn’t worked because we haven’t been able to agree on them and it is taking the wrong path.

Trying to identify spiritual needs feeds what is wrong with our health care in this country and keeps us from finding a Standard of Practice

that can be communicated and taught.

Health care is based on defining and separating what each discipline’s area of expertise is and we have entered this dialogue by trying to find what separates us from the others. Spiritual needs as different from medical needs, social needs, psychological needs, and nursing needs.

What is left out of this approach most often is what the patient wants for their care.

The solution? We look at what Type of person we are dealing with; and what needs they have and then describe that from a spiritual care perspective. Each discipline has the same task, and then the person can choose which approach or approaches fit them the best for a care plan unique to them.