German spirituality – spirituality in Germany  

Posted on August 20, 2014 by pallcare

HIER ANKLICKEN FÜR DIE DEUTSCHE VERSION

Lukas Radbruch, President of the German Association for Palliative Care, and Chair of Palliative Medicine at the University of Bonn, Germany.

Prof Lukas Radbruch

Rev Joep van de Geer, co-chair of the EAPC Task Force on Spirituality, recently contributed a post about the translation of the Dutch Guideline on Spiritual Care into German following a German course on spirituality in Mainz. The EAPC task force has translated the guideline as an example of the myriad of valuable tools and documents that are available in various countries, albeit only in the native language.

Without doubt, this translation will be very useful for palliative care or spiritual care professionals in Germany. However, reading the guideline I’d like to point out that there is a vibrant development in spiritual care in Germany, and a number of tools on spiritual care are already available. Here is some information on other German resources, with a rather random selection by me.

• There is a Task Force on Spiritual Care within the German Association for Palliative Care, and the task force has published a paper on “What is spiritual care?” that is available online. This position paper from 2007 describes what spiritual care is, what are the tasks in clinical palliative care, in education and research, and in media work.
• Traugott Roser has an academic chair for spiritual care in Munich, and he cooperates closely with the chair for social care (Maria Wasner) and the chair for palliative medicine (Claudia Bausewein) in the same city. There is a lot of education and research going on in his department. Traugott Roser is also the editor of an online journal on spiritual care. The latest issue in 2014 includes original papers on knowledge and opportunities for volunteers in psychosocial crisis intervention, on behaviourial therapy and spirituality as well as on the competencies of emergency spiritual care givers.
•  Traugott Roser has also written an excellent German textbook entitled ‘Spiritual Care’ and, together with Thomas Hagen, Hermann Reigber and Bernadette Fittkau-Tönnesmann, a curriculum on palliative care for spiritual care givers.
• Another excellent book is by Monika Müller, with many stories and reflections on how to accompany dying or grieving people as a spiritual pathway (‘Dem Sterben Leben geben: Die Begleitung sterbender und trauernder Menschen als spiritueller Weg’). I often use this for training courses of physicians.

There is a lot more in German language out there and I am sure that I have missed out on some important resources. Spiritual care really seems to be a most interesting topic in palliative care in Germany, as well as elsewhere.

I agree completely with Joep van de Geer that it is worthwhile to compare tools and resources between countries, languages and cultures. I hope the EAPC task force will continue with the translation of other material to facilitate exchange and comparison. There is so much to be gained from this exchange!

Links and resources

• The EAPC Taskforce on Spiritual Care on Palliative Care.

• ‘The Dutch Guideline on Spiritual Care’ (German and English translations).

• The German Association for Palliative Care.

• You can read more posts about spiritual care in palliative care on the EAPC blog, including Joep van de Geer’s post published on 18 August.

• Selected EAPC documents are now translated into 23 languages – please visit our new ‘EAPC documents in other languages’ on the EAPC website.