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Spirituality-in-Healthcare. Just because it may be 'made up', does that mean it is not real and does not matter?'. David Hay: The Spirit of the Child. Relational Consciousness. The Spirit of the Child. Children are inherently spiritual
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Spirituality-in-Healthcare Just because it may be 'made up', doesthat mean it is not real and does not matter?'
The Spirit of the Child • Children are inherently spiritual • This spirituality is present for biological/evolutionary purposes • Children’s spirituality/relational consiousness is present from birth
Spirituality and Religion From Hays perspective this is the source of the experiential basis of religion, seen as a social construction in response to spiritual experience.
De-spiritualising Institutions • Children are taught to think logically and rationally and to downgrade or even exclude the pre-school spiritual experiences that were so formative of their early perceptions of the world. • Hay identifies this spiritual repression with certain forms of frustration and aggression encountered by children in their teens.
The social construction of Secularism • Individualism is a myth • Secularism is a myth which has been created by western culture and which now appears “normal.”
Spirituality as a Human Universal • All human beings have a spiritual dimension. • This spiritual dimension/spirituality has biological correlates • Spirituality is present in human beings for evolutionary purposes • It is this inherent spirituality that lies behind the creation of religions and religious systems
The Nature of Attention • Human beings have two very different and indeed incompatible kinds of attention which need to be applied to the world at the same time. • we use our left hemisphere to grasp and manipulate, and the right to understand the world at large and how things within it relate to one another, as well as our relationship with it as a whole. • The issue between the hemispheres is not thinking versus feeling as has been commonly understood, but rather two very different kinds of thinking:
[E]ach hemisphere has a quite consistent, but radically different, ‘take’ on the world. This means that, at the core of our thinking about ourselves, the world and our relationship with it, there are two incompatible but necessary views that we need to try to combine. And things go badly wrong when we do not.
McGilchrist’s key point is that “the hidden story of western culture, told here, is about how the abstract, instrumental, articulate and assured left hemisphere has gradually usurped the more contextual, humane, systemic, holistic but relatively tentative and inarticulate right hemisphere.”
In other words, it is the left hemisphere’s take on the world that has come to dominate post Enlightenment western cultures, much to the detriment of culture in general, but particularly and importantly for current purposes, issues of religion and spirituality which no longer make any sense to many westerners or if they are accepted, they are demoted the realm of the private. This observation is crucial for the subject of this paper. McGilchrist puts it this way:
“The nature of the attention we choose to pay alters the nature of the world we experience, and governs what it is we will find. This in turn governs the type of attention we deem it appropriate to pay. Before long we are locked into a certain vision of the world, as we become more and more sure of what it is we see. To a man with a hammer everything begins to look like a nail. And some beautiful research demonstrates that what we do not expect, we just do not see.”
Spiritual consciousness • Spirituality may well be “real” and indeed may well have biological correlates. • Spirituality is a relational concepts that is tied in with community and health. (e.g. Women and depression; men and suicide) • However, its social standing means that people are suspicious and indeed may be ,or ready to deny it as a significant factor than accept that it may have benefit. • There are certain times in life when spiritual consciousness tends to come to the fore.
Spirituality as presence and absence • There is a real sense in which spirituality doesn’t exist! • Spirituality names something missing from the ways in which we care. • Spirituality helps us to pay attention to the right thing
A Narrowing of our Consciousness and a constriction our ability to pay the right kinds of attention. • We miss key aspects of the types of states of consciousness that people go through. • We miss key aspects of the nature of illness and wellness • We respond negatively to issues that require more thoughtful responses.
Paying Attention to the Right Things The Case of Breast Cancer
Breast Cancer • Moving inwards, moving outwards, moving inwards • The cultural meanings of cancer • The communal meanings of cancer • The personal meaning of cancer
Slowing down and noticing myself! Its been good to get some time to look inside my own head! I have always been so busy and involved in things I never really took the time to look at myself and my life. My illness has given me that space and I feel I know myself better for that.
‘What am I living for?’ …Before I had cancer I was thinking, ‘What am I living for?’ Like there’s no purpose, nothing. Then when my life was threatened with this disease, it hit me that I love my life and I want to live. It kind of make me realize, appreciate life more than before. So now, I become more positive. I still get angry, but I don’t keep it in me. And then I don’t worry a lot.
A death sentence? When you are diagnosed with breast cancer you feel like it is a death sentence…not just for me but for all the people who depend on me.
Facing things positively Your family go through the pain and shock just like I do. My son (he’s 5) got really angry to start with, but in time he has coped with it quite well. My daughter (she’s 7) has struggled…she can’t really let go of it and move on I feel I need to be strong for her. But that is a good challenge for me! It forces me to think about how I can face things positively.
A sense of worth and meaning It’s (my breast cancer) has made it easier to find meaning in life. I have realised how important I am to a lot of people...to my parents, my sisters and brothers…its been a real eye opener!
Possibly a positive? The diagnosis was devastating but once my inner strength kicked in I began to see it as possibly a positive…Having children and a reason to keep going has really helped.
Mental Illness • What do we mean when we call someone mentally ill? • Its only relatively recently that illness has been the definitional language to describe what we now call ‘mental illness.’ • Previously we would talk of alternative realities (demons, visions, dreams etc) • The problem with accepting the terminology of mental illness and the only explanatory framework is that it reduces all other forms of experience to pathology. • The awareness, the consciousness, the experiences of people with mental illness is overpowered by assumptions of meaninglessness.
Paying Attention to the Right Things: The case of psychotic illnesses
Recognising loss Grieving for lost friends
Core concept of a new approach to hearing voices • Hearing voices in itself is not a sign of a mental illness, but a sign of a problem. • Becoming a patient is due to the inability to cope with voices and underlying problems.
In our society there are more healthy people hearing voices, than there are ill people hearing voices. • Voices are messengers that sometimes bring awful messages. • Hearing voices is apparent in healthy people.
Spirituality in all of its diverse forms helps us to pay a different kind of attention to the world • Relational consciousness • Paying the right attention • The role of spirituality and religion in shaping what we think we see. • The importance of valuing the spiritual irrespective of what you think its origins may be.
