{"id":1957,"date":"2015-12-09T16:07:35","date_gmt":"2015-12-09T21:07:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pts.edu\/blog\/?p=1957"},"modified":"2021-01-29T15:25:45","modified_gmt":"2021-01-29T20:25:45","slug":"counseling-end-of-life-patients","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pts.edu\/blog\/counseling-end-of-life-patients\/","title":{"rendered":"Doctors and Pastors Serving Together to Counsel End of Life Patients"},"content":{"rendered":"

Counseling and care for patients at end of life presents numerous and complex medical, emotional, and spiritual issues. These issues are often treated separately, yet they overlap and intermingle in the experience of the dying patient.<\/p>\n

Some may argue that doctors and pastors should operate in our various spheres of influence and expertise and stay out of each other\u2019s way. I suppose that\u2019s one way of looking at it. But when it comes right down to it, I think those who work in the areas of medicine and pastoral care share a central goal\u2014human flourishing, <\/em>a broad understanding of the health and wholeness of individuals, families, and communities.<\/p>\n

Medical professionals aren\u2019t only concerned about eliminating disease from a person\u2019s body and restoring that person to physical health; they are also concerned about the patient\u2019s emotional, mental, and spiritual well-being. And, even when it\u2019s clear that a person\u2019s prognosis is very poor, medical caregivers continue to ask, \u201cHow can we make the time this person has left as comfortable and meaningful as possible?\u201d At the same time, medical professionals also ask questions about the kinds of relational and communal support that patients have as they face serious illness and death, and they are concerned not only about individual patients but about the social structures that either contribute to or diminish the health of the wider public.<\/p>\n

Likewise, pastoral care, at its best, takes a holistic view of human persons and communities. Most of us as pastoral caregivers and counselors do not operate within a framework where we are only concerned with the \u201cstate of a person\u2019s soul,\u201d and not with what happens to a person\u2019s body or overall well-being. Instead, we try to overcome that dualistic split between spirit and body and see the whole person as the subject that we need to address. This is why pastoral counselors\u00a0are so often called upon to participate in conversations about advance care planning or other end-of-life issues: because people recognize that facing death isn\u2019t just about what happens to their physical bodies or deciding which treatments they will or won\u2019t pursue. It\u2019s also about coming to terms with all that death means emotionally and spiritually; it\u2019s about engaging honestly with questions about meaning, suffering, and hope. These are questions which medical caregivers can also address with their patients, and this is why we need to work as a team.<\/p>\n

I think it\u2019s clear where the medical professionals\u2019 expertise lies. Our expertise as pastoral caregivers involves helping to give theological or spiritual language to what is happening in a person\u2019s life, in a way that is congruent with that person\u2019s religious tradition. As part of pastoral counseling, we can also offer some other unique gifts to those we serve: for example, we can offer rituals and other religious practices as means through which people can cope with their suffering; we can offer the resources of the faith community to assist people in their time of need; and we can, from a very practical perspective, help people with planning for their funerals or other services that will commemorate and celebrate their lives. After a person dies, we can also offer continuing counseling and supportive care to grieving family members and friends in ways that are often not possible or appropriate for medical professionals.<\/p>\n

German philosopher Martin Heidegger once wrote, \u201cCare is the basic constitutive phenomenon of human existence.\u201d In other words, care is what makes the human being human, and this is why we are called to practice it in our various institutions and in our communities. Without care, individuals and communities cannot flourish. If human flourishing is our aim, we must remember that care is at the heart of all we do, and we must be intentional about cooperating with others who share that vision, so that our care does not become too one-sided or isolated from other helpful perspectives.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Rev. Dr. Leanna K. Fuller is assistant professor of pastoral care at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and teaches in the MDiv Program. Her ministry experience includes serving as associate pastor of Oakland Christian Church in Suffolk, Va., where she coordinated youth ministry and Christian education programming. She writes regularly on pastoral care and counseling, pastoral theology, and congregational conflict.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Counseling and care for patients at end of life presents numerous and complex medical, emotional, and spiritual issues. These issues are often treated separately, yet they overlap and intermingle in the experience of the dying patient. Some may argue that doctors and pastors should operate in our various spheres of influence and expertise and 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