Spirituality and Social Work

Beth R. Crisp

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9781138267893
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317051152
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

For much of the twentieth century, professional social work sought to distance itself from its religious origins with the consequence being that the role of spirituality in the lives of service users tended to be sidelined. Yet it is clear that many people begin to explore their spirituality precisely at times when they are trying to make sense of difficult life circumstances or experiences and may come into contact with social workers. In recent years, there has been an increasing understanding that in order to be relevant to the lives of people they work with, social workers need to go beyond their material needs, but there is little understanding of how spirituality can be sensitively incorporated into practice, especially when either practitioners or service users have no religious affiliation or there is no shared religious background. In this pathbreaking volume Beth Crisp offers social workers ideas of beginning conversations in which spiritual values and beliefs may surface, allowing service users to respond from their own framework and to begin to discuss the specific religious or spiritual practices and beliefs which are important to them. She considers spirituality in the context of lived experience, a perspective that she argues breaks down any mystique and suspicion of explicitly religious language by focusing on language and experiences with which most people can identify. Such a framework allows exploration of issues that emerge at different stages in the lifespan, both by persons who are religious and those who do not identify with any formal religion. Most literature on spirituality within social work refers to the elderly, to those who are sick or have been bereaved, yet, as Crisp points out, spirituality is important for people of all ages and not just at seemingly exceptional moments.

PART I Concepts and Contexts

DOI: 10.4324/9781315610399-1

One of the hallmarks of writing in social work is that each author (or set of authors) tends to have their own definition or understanding. This includes the most core of social work concepts such as assessment (Crisp et al.2003, 2006). If as a profession we can’t agree on what we mean by our core concepts, the chances of consensus on concepts like spirituality which are being discussed in a disparate range of academic disciplines as well as being used widely in the broader community, would seem remote. In fact so disparate are the many definitions of spirituality which are in use, especially in respect of the relationship between religion and spirituality, it has become essential to explain to the reader what is meant by these terms, at least for the purposes of this book. Explaining these concepts forms the basis of Chapter 1.

Equally contentious are the debates as to whether spirituality has a legitimate place in contemporary social work, and is something which many social workers have strong feelings either for or against. However as is demonstrated in Chapter 2, frequently this due to the conflation of spirituality with organised religion(s), with it being the latter which is far more often perceived as being problematic.

While some readers may want to skip over Part I and move straight into Parts II and III, these first two chapters seek to explore this difficult terrain of the concepts and contexts and provide the rationale for the approach taken to understanding how spirituality may be understood among different age groups and facets of lived experience.

Chapter 1 Religion and Spirituality

DOI: 10.4324/9781315610399-2

Introduction

Every era has its distinguishing words, ideas and concepts that seem to emerge into the common vernacular. In this early part of the twenty-first century, ‘spirituality’ is one of those words which suddenly seems to be everywhere, not just associated with religious devotees of some persuasions. No longer does the purchase of books on spirituality require one to go specialist religious bookshops, with many of the large bookshops in places such as Australia, Britain and North America having dedicated sections to books on spirituality, sometimes labelled ‘body, mind and spirit’. Books by spiritual writers such as Thomas Moore (e.g. 1992, 1994, 1997) and Julia Cameron (e.g. Cameron and Bryan 1992) sell in quantities which make publishers very contented and many other authors envious.

One of the ratings surprises in recent years on British television was the three-part series The Monastery, which was screened in 2005, attracted around three million viewers and chronicled the experiences of five very different men spending forty days living in an abbey. Whereas the hosts were Roman Catholic monks in the Benedictine tradition, their guests were not Catholic and most had relatively little involvement in any organised religion. One was involved in making porn movies, another was a painter and decorator who had spent time in jail during the troubles in Northern Ireland, a third was studying for a doctorate in Buddhism, a fourth was in legal publishing and the fifth was a retired teacher and poet. Despite the fact that some of the participants didn’t see themselves as being religious, they were asking questions about where their lives were going, and how to make sense and move on from painful memories and disappointments. While the monastic setting and the occupations of the visitors provided a degree of exoticism for the viewer, arguably what made the programme attractive to a wide range of viewers was the opportunity to watch a group of adults grappling with the profoundly spiritual issues which most of us find ourselves tackling at some points in our lives. Similar series have been made and screened in both North America and Australia (Crisp 2007 a).

Expertise in spirituality is no longer considered to be limited to religious professionals. Courses on spirituality, which prior to the 1990s were rarely to be found outside seminaries or institutes for the training of religious professionals (Endean 1995) are now flourishing in secular universities and frequently taught outside theology or religious studies by academics in disciplines including literature, sociology and the health sciences. The contemporary interest in spirituality is not just by individuals but has also captured the imagination of secular bureaucracies charged with providing health and welfare services and/or training the professional workforce, many of which now include vague mentions of spirituality in guidelines mentioning the need for ‘holistic’ care. Increasingly, health and welfare students are finding compulsory content on spirituality in courses to prepare them for professional practice. For example, the current Global Standards for the Education and Training of the Social Work Profession (IASSW and IFSW 2004) mention ‘spiritual factors’ as amongst the types of knowledge that qualified social workers require in understanding human development and behaviour (IASSW and IFSW 2004: 6) but provide no guidance as to what this should involve or how this should occur. Similarly, in England, the National Health Service (NHS) is requiring some input on spirituality in nurse training courses. Although they will probably get no more than a few hours of training around dealing with the spiritual issues of their patients, the NHS reduced the number of chaplains it pays for in one English region from seven to one (Birmingham Diocese 2006), presumably because they are no longer considered necessary.

The contemporary interest in spirituality, which has arguably never been higher, comes at a time when participation in formal religion has never been lower (Holloway 2007; Tacey 2000, 2003). By 1990, when less than 15 percent of Britons regularly attended religious worship, in response to survey questions about religious commitment, 54 percent defined themselves as being a religious person, 53 percent claimed to ‘need moments of prayer’, 44 percent to ‘draw strength/comfort from religion’ and 36 percent claimed to ‘often think about meaning and purposes of life’ (Davie 1994). Hence, it is important to consider the relationship between religion and spirituality.

Religion and Spirituality

There is no consensus as to the relationship between religion and spirituality, let alone the definitions of each. Whereas spirituality has traditionally been considered to be an aspect of religion, in the twenty-first century, there would be many people who would consider religion to be a sub-set of spirituality (e.g. Adams et al. 2008; Ai 2002) on the basis that people of very different religions report similar religious experiences (Madigan 1998). If spirituality is considered to be a universal characteristic which all humans have, the expression of one’s spirituality may be understood as being socially and culturally constructed, reflecting different religious traditions or an absence of any religion (Farias and Hense 2008). Still others would maintain that religion and spirituality overlap, but it is possible to have one without the other (Gollnick 2005). Hence, it is often suggested that

Religion is a personal or institutionalized system grounded in a set of beliefs, values and practices. In contrast, spirituality … is a personal state or manner of being. Hence, religious practice may moderate one’s spirituality or religious practice may itself be moderated by one’s spirituality. In addition, religion is neither a necessary or sufficient condition for spiritual development. Likewise, spirituality is neither a necessary or sufficient condition for religious practice. (Barnett et al. 2000: 574)

A more extreme understanding is that spirituality pertains primarily to orientations and practices which are outside formal religions (e.g. Heelas and Woodhead 2005), but this viewpoint does not appear to have widescale support.

It has been argued that in the latter half of the twentieth century, the language of spirituality grew considerably in use, at least in part because of less acceptance in the wider community of the language of religion. The process of drafting the British 1944 Education Act provides one such example. On realising that the language of ‘religion’ was problematic and likely to meet resistance both from a number of members of parliament who were dismissive of religion as well as the various religious groups being unable to come to a consensus, the then Archbishop of Canterbury who was trying to insert some clauses into the draft bill did so using the word ‘spiritual’. As his assistant at the time noted:

The churches were in such a state at the time [that] we thought if we used the word “spiritual” they might agree to that because they didn’t know what it was. They all had very clear ideas about what religion was and they all knew they didn’t agree with anyone else’s definition of it. (In Hay and Nye 2006: 19)

To this day there continue to be many people who use the word ‘spiritual’ in the belief that it is more palatable than the language of religion, but see the two terms as synonymous. However there are many others who consider spirituality a far more preferable concept than religion:

A few people see very little difference between religion and spirituality. Most make a clear distinction. Religion tends to be associated with what is publicly available, such as churches, mosques, Bibles, prayer books, religious officials, weddings and funerals. It also regularly includes uncomfortable associations with boredom, narrow-mindedness and being out of date, as well as more disconcerting links with fanaticism, bigotry, cruelty and persecution. It seems that in many people’s minds religion is firmly caught up in the cold brutalities of history.

Spirituality is almost always seen as much warmer, associated with love, inspiration, wholeness, depth, mystery and personal devotions like prayer and meditation. (Hay and Nye 2006: 19)

Ironically, many practices which people who regard themselves as spiritual but not religious, have religious origins. Practices such as Zen meditation, tai chi and yoga have been adopted by many people often with little knowledge or interest in the religious origins of these practices (Sayuki Tiemeier 2006) but because of their effects on wellbeing (Mason et al. 2007a) and as panaceas for a stressful lifestyle (Mackay 1997). As such, in today’s world people often adopt a selection of spiritual practices from a diverse set of religious traditions rather than live according to the teachings and practices of a single tradition (Mason et al. 2007b). One Australian survey found 60 percent of respondents agreeing with the statement ‘Different religions and philosophies have different versions of the truth and may be equally right in their own ways’ (Bellamy et al. 2002: 51). Thus spiritual eclecticism, drawing on the insights of a range of religions and other philosophies, rather than adherence to a single religion, is not uncommon. (Barnes 1999) although considered problematic in the eyes of some (Chater 2000)

Almost a decade into the twenty-first century, there are suggestions that, in recent years, and in particular since 9/11 in 2001, there has been the rise of what is becoming known as ‘post-secularism’. On the one hand, there has been a rise in people acknowledging that spirituality has a place in their private lives, and other the other there has been much more prominence of religion in the public/global stage (Boer 2008). One of the consequence of such changes seems to be a breaking down of the dichotomy where religion is seen as ‘bad’ and spirituality as ‘good’, at least in some places. As one recent writer notes:

& the question I was faced with was why it had become perfectly acceptable, cool even, to be spiritual. It was certainly not what I had assumed was the status quo: not that long ago, if you showed a tendency to meditate and hum the sacred syllable “om”, or if you actually went to church and read the Bible, you were a “weirdo”, part of a fading minority, and definitely not cool. What had changed, I wondered. Why was secularism on the retreat after a century and a half of a somewhat rocky march forward? (Boer 2008: 36)

An alternate viewpoint is that it is not that interest in spirituality per se which has increased and gained credibility in recent times, but rather changes as to what is recognised as being spiritual. For example, literature, film and art have often pointed to the sacred and spiritual within a culture, even if it has not always been labelled as such (Ashcroft 2005). This is because they encourage a deep response rather than a purely factual or rational one (Wearing 2007).

Given that in contemporary usage, spirituality and religion are no longer synon...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Part I Concepts and Contexts
• Part II Spirituality Over the Lifespan
• Part III Spirituality and Lived Experience
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index