A community of caring. Patients in a rehabilitation unit experience holistic healing through a spiritual support...

Empowered by empathic knowledge of the pain and suffering endured by patients, a pastoral care giver can foster holistic healing, integrating a spiritual dimension into the lives of responsive individuals by helping them form a circle of love, a Community of Caring. A Community of Caring can be effective in many specialized hospital units or long-term care centers. In a hospital physical rehabilitation unit, for example, a chaplain successfully provided a time, place, and ambience where patients could share their deepest feelings, thoughts, and concerns and learn together techniques of coping. This Community of Caring helped patients overcome feelings of inadequacy and low self-esteem, encouraged self-acceptance despite physical losses, and stimulated new concepts of spirituality, notably the importance and the sacredness of the present time spent in recuperation. Participants in the Community of Caring discussed ideas such as the concept that all activity, even mundane rejuvenative therapy exercises, can be--at least potentially--sacramental activity; the importance of fully using all facets of physical therapy; and the idea that days spent in recuperation can be a time for deepened relationship with self, others, and a compassionate God. The sessions helped many patients mobilize their inner resources and assume greater personal responsibility for their healing and recovery.