When Patients Talk Politics: Opportunities for Recontextualizing Ministerial Theory and Practice

Some chaplains and pastoral caregivers may regard political conversation in a care encounter as a distraction from spiritual work or a transgression of our professional role or ethical code. Yet politics is very often an expression of values that can shape a care recipient's self-image, impact spiritual and emotional well-being, and humanize or dehumanize others. Recontextualizing political references in a care recipient's personal and social history can reveal grief beneath grievance, trauma in need of healing, and sources of meaning and strength; hence, it is possible to integrate a care recipient's politics into a spiritual assessment and plan of care. It is all the more important that we do so conscientiously at a time when care professionals are taking seriously, and sometimes wrestling with, the ethical demand for anti-racist witness and its relationship to our commitment to "meet patients where they are." In order to provide ethical and effective interventions, we must first consider our own social location insofar as it impacts relationships and use of self. This article provides a framework for doing so as well as several suggestions for clinical practice.