Integrating spirituality in health and social care: perspectives and practical approaches

There have been many texts over the years examining issues to do with emotional health and well-being, most of which provide a discourse to argue that the practice of healing and the art of medicine have become overly ‘medicalised’ to the detriment of more integrated and holistic responses to people’s health and illness. For example, in Janzen’s The Social Fabric of Health w1x it was argued how different cultural definitions of health’ internationally tended to emphasise the importance of social and behavioural relationships rather than the act of healing or the availability of cures. One such example is the Congolese notion of ‘obusinge’, a local word used in parts of Zaire to reflect the state of an individual’s internal spiritual wellbeing and their ability to cope with life events such as births, conflicts, illnesses and bereavements. Whilst individuals in such countries place a mystical interpretation on the attainment of ‘obusinge’, those that have deconstructed the term have shown that it is not just an expression that reflects a state of spiritual wellbeing as a result of being free from illness, but is primarily related to a range of social factors such as peace and friendship between families and the availability of essentials such as land, food, good water, education and freedom from debt w2x.