Spiritual Dimension of Pain

What is it about?

There is an ongoing uncertainty about the nature of the spiritual dimension of pain and illness and different opinions exist if spirituality should be accepted as an additional dimension within the biopsychosocial model. The following paper tries to clarify the nature of the spiritual dimension on the basis of an analysis of human subjectivity. Human subjectivity and questions of meaning are a necessary condition for spiritual search but should not be regarded as spiritual in nature. Though there is a detectable shift in terminology from “existential suffering” to “spiritual pain”, the term “spiritual” should be reserved for questions involving ultimate meaning or ultimate transcendence. Nevertheless within practical care for the sick and dying terminological questions are secondary to the challenge to sensibly assess and react to all forms of suffering. “Existential-spiritual suffering” could be an appropriate term to describe the this whole range of different forms of suffering.

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