主体的生のサポートとしてのスピリチュアルケア

抄録

In this article, I define spiritual care as the "support of the careseeker's subjective/spiritual life." Spiritual care is provided for people in spiritual crises, where their existing foundational/core beliefs are dysfunctional in their situation. Such people are required to let go of their existing dysfunctional foundational/ core beliefs, and to continue their subjective lives without their foundational/core beliefs until new ones have been developed. The spiritual care should support the careseekers in such process. In this article,"the provision of 'Ba'(space/opportunity) for the careseekers' belief-free inner-exploration/self-expression" is proposed as a definition of the spiritual care. This definition can be described also as "the support of the careseekers' subjective/spiritual lives." This definition coincides with the spiritual care that the author has actually provided in his clinical practice, which means that this definition works in the actual clinical setting. Further, it is also shown that the Clinical Pastoral Education program mainly provided in the United States, which is considered to invite their students to be free from their own beliefs by becoming conscious of their beliefs, is effective as training for the ones to provide such spiritual care. Lastly, it is expounded that the proposed definition has affinity with some of the existing definitions of spiritual care widely known by people in the Japanese medical clinical setting.