What is Pastoral Care in a Hospital?
Pastoral care in a hospital setting focuses on providing empathy, care, kindness, and a listening ear to individuals during a brief but intense period of their lives.
Here's a breakdown of what pastoral care in a hospital entails:
Core Principles
Pastoral care, generally, is described as being heart-centred, offering empathy, kindness, and a listening ear. It involves sitting with someone without necessarily having to fix their problems, but rather walking alongside them. This compassionate approach is a core motivation for many counsellors. The fundamental skills of pastoral care, such as empathy, care, kindness, and active listening, remain consistent across various contexts, including hospitals.
Distinction from Professional Counselling
While professional counselling involves specific technical qualifications and precise, technique-oriented methods, pastoral care focuses more on providing a supportive presence. A key difference is that pastoral care often involves simply sitting with someone, whereas formal counselling typically involves clients actively seeking solutions.
Application in Hospitals (Chaplaincy)
In Australia, pastoral care in a hospital situation is often referred to as chaplaincy. The primary distinguishing factor for pastoral care in hospitals, compared to other settings like churches, is the length and intensity of engagement.
◦ Brief but Intense: Hospital chaplaincy is often much briefer, lasting perhaps a week, two weeks, or a month. Despite the short duration, the relationship is very intense, often addressing critical life stages such as helping someone "end well in their life" and "walk with God when their time is up".
◦ New Relationships: Unlike church settings where longer-term rapport can be built over years, a hospital chaplain may not have known the individual previously before entering into this intense pastoral relationship.
Comparison to Aged Care
Pastoral care in aged care facilities tends to be more similar to a church situation than a hospital setting, as it allows for longer engagement and community support, sometimes even with chapels within the facilities.
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