The board-certified chaplain as member of the transdisciplinary team: An epistemological approach to spiritual care

ABSTRACT

Transdisciplinary models of healthcare require specialists in all clinical disciplines including medical, nursing, social work, and spiritual care. Spiritual care is the least understood of these disciplines, often resulting in using unqualified people to provide such care. This may result in spiritual harm for the care recipients and inability for this discipline to provide meaningful contributions to care plan objectives. The failure to utilize qualified spiritual care practitioners is a result of a failure in epistemology. Spirituality, and thus the care of people’s spirits, is a unique domain of knowledge that is subject to its own epistemology and has its own criteria for knowing and validating its specialized domain. Current best practice in the United States and Canada requires the spiritual care specialist on a clinical transdisciplinary care team be a board-certified chaplain who has undergone the proper formation, education, training, and vetting. Whether other countries require board certification or not, the epistemological requirements for adjudicating qualified spiritual care practitioners remains the same. This article spells out what these epistemological requirements are for a spiritual care specialist.

KEYWORDS:

• Holistic care
• transdisciplinary care
• spiritual care
• spirituality
• chaplain
• epistemology

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Mark LaRocca-Pitts, BCC, MDiv, PhD, has 20 years’ experience as a professional chaplain in healthcare settings, including acute care and hospice care. He is a board-certified chaplain with the Association of Professional Chaplains and currently serves as Director on their Board of Directors. Mark received his PhD in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from Harvard University and is ordained by the United Methodist Church. He currently resides in Atlanta, GA (USA) and serves as pastor in a small United Methodist church.