Description
Book SynopsisConventional coping strategies can be pushed to their limits when people find themselves in situations of suffering, illness, and dying. Moved beyond their everyday consciousness, individuals often have spiritual experiences of grace and encounters with the transcendent or the divine. The author shows how care providers can support patients in their suffering and how they can recognize patients' spiritual experiences. Explaining different types of experiences of transcendence such as seeing angels or feelings of otherness and presence, this book will be of valuable use to professionals working in palliative and spiritual care, such as spiritual caregivers, therapists, nurses, and physicians. The book entails a new approach to spiritual care which opens a space of hope wherein grace may happen even amid pain, suffering, illness and dying.
Trade ReviewEvery word of this rich and profound account of Renz's important and valuable research with the dying rings true. Monika is a courageous and inspirational pioneer. Her challenging work is worthy of the closest attention, extending the boundaries of human wisdom where we all need to go. -- Larry Culliford, author of ‘The Psychology of Spirituality’, and, ‘Much Ado about Something: a vision of Christian maturity’.
A bold ethnographic inquiry into palliative care patients' experiences of hope and grace that transcends conventional reason, language, and cultural boundaries of the ego-based self. Hope and grace are not specific states or goals but contemplative processes of belonging with recognizable qualities that can inform compassionate palliative practices. -- Bruce L. Arnold, Ph.D., University of Calgary, Canada.
There is a great value for the patient in these theological musings from this music therapist, psychotherapist, and spiritual counsellor. They have the power to lift us beyond fear and pain. Renz unravels this mode of thinking. it can assist carers and medical staff, because it facilitates the work of injecting new hope and comfort into the milieu of the dying.
This book is not always an easy read, owing to its academic approach to dying. But it has a positive spin. It shows that dying and the proximity of death can flow into a close relationship with God and his holy angels. That said, it could perhaps benefit from having fewer patient-related case studies and more analytic material from Renz.
-- Revd David Bryant * Church Times *
Table of ContentsIntroduction. 1. Spirituality is Experience. 2. Between Two Worlds: The Liminal Sphere and Its Laws. 3. Hope for Grace. 4. Experience of Transcendence as Reality and Grace. 5. Experiences of Angels and Darkness. 6. Experiences of God and the Divine. 7. Being or Relationship?. 8. Spiritual Care between Psychotherapy and Pastoral Care. 9. Spiritual Care Interventions. Appendix. References.
