SEF-EDG8090 - Certificate in Spirituality, Health, and Healing

Course Description

Spirituality, religion, and culture play an important role in health and healing. Health care systems and health care professionals must recognize and understand a variety of spiritual and religious values, beliefs, and practices and their impact on health and healing. To meet the needs of a spiritually and culturally diverse client population, today's health care system is evolving in its approach.

Course Outline

Lesson 01 - Characteristics of Spirituality

• While theorists and researchers have yet to agree on a single, universally accepted theory or definition of spirituality, few would deny its existence or impact on health and healing. In the past, spirituality was synonymous with religion. Although spirituality may include traditional religious beliefs and practices, spirituality is a much broader concept that also includes nonreligious beliefs and expressions. It includes a sense of connection to something larger than ourselves and typically involves a search for meaning in life. For many cultures, spirituality is deeply connected to healing practices and expanded stages of consciousness.

Lesson 02 - Spirituality, the Health Care Professional, and the Spiritual Care Provider

• The relationship between healthcare provider and client can provide both with a sense of strength, healing, inner peace, and an interconnectedness that gives meaning to the relationship. This relationship is a deeply spiritual one and results from the sharing of intimate experiences such as birth, death, life-threatening illnesses, emotional chaos, and the issues that arise during healing. By caring, listening, and engendering trust, the healthcare or spiritual care provider and their client can form a spiritual relationship that can heal each other.

Lesson 03 - Spiritual Rituals

• The spiritual rituals of prayer, meditation, guided imagery, gratitude, spending time in nature, dancing, storytelling, and art can all help people connect to their inner being, to others, and to a divine spirit or Sacred Source. A part of spiritual and cultural traditions, rituals help to provide awareness, meaning, intention, and purpose in life.

Lesson 04 - Spirituality, Religion and Health

• Religion and spirituality are distinct yet related concepts. An individual's spirituality, religious beliefs, and religious practices can all have a profound effect on their health. The major spiritual elements and rituals of Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and Christianity are explored. The benefits of religion on specific health practices are examined, and the role of healthcare providers in supporting their clients' spiritual and religious beliefs is discussed.

Lesson 05 - Spirituality, Culture and Health

• Healthcare professionals and spiritual care providers face many challenges in becoming prepared to administer holistic, respectful, and culturally and spiritually competent care for their patients and clients. Understanding the relationship between spirituality, culture, and health is a vital part of providing spiritually competent care.

Lesson 06 - Spiritual Assessment and Spiritual Care

• Spiritual care is an important and necessary part of appropriate patient care, yet many health care professionals feel ill equipped to provide it to their clients. When people experience a spiritual crisis and need spiritual care, they may choose to discuss their concerns only if they have been shown respect, understanding, and appreciation by the person(s) caring for them. Thus, understanding spirituality and its impact on well-being is one way to demonstrate respect and appreciation and helps healthcare practitioners provide compassionate and appropriate spiritual care.

Lesson 07 - Therapeutic Interventions for Healing

• The therapeutic interventions of music, art, dance, humor, and animal-assisted therapy can be integrated into mainstream medicine and should be considered as complements, not replacements for, mainstream medical treatments. The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) is evaluating these therapeutic interventions and research is demonstrating that they are not only safe but effective as well.

Lesson 08 - Sacred Spaces, Healing Places

• Modern nursing was founded on the concepts of healing environments. Florence Nightingale was one of the first to realize the importance of nature, light, noise, and sensory stimulation in healing. Today, it is well known that healing environments empower patients to be involved in their own healing journey and take responsibility for their own health. Through their understanding of the elements of a sacred, healing space and the environment's role in healing, healthcare providers and consumers can create and support these spiritual spaces so their health is enhanced, their culture and history are respected, and wellness, prevention, and self-care are emphasized.

Lesson 09 - Spiritual Care of the Dying

• The dying experience is unique for each individual. For many individuals, death is not an end to life. It is simply a passage to another dimension, sometimes called heaven, the spiritual world, another plane of existence, or nirvana. As knowledge of issues involved in death and dying increases and positive attitudes about death and dying are promoted, the spiritual care and support for people who are dying continues to improve. In addition, there are many spiritual, psychological, social, and cultural healing strategies that can assist health care providers in the compassionate spiritual care of the dying.

Lesson 10 - Spirituality and the Grieving Process

• Dealing with loss and grief is one of the great spiritual challenges of life. Individuals experience grief differently, depending on their inner resources, support, and relationships. Grief is subjective and can have psychological, social, and spiritual responses. Although cultural expressions of grief may vary, the deep sense of loss and sorrow is almost universal.

Lesson 11 - Spirituality, Religion, and Children

• The goal of this course is to introduce the health care professional to the relationship between spirituality, religion, and health in children. Family beliefs and values will be discusses as well as their role in treatment and healing.

Lesson 12 - Spiritual Dimensions of Aging

• Aging presents unique challenges to an individual's spiritual growth, development, and expression. The relationships between loss, hope, love, sexuality, religion, and health can profoundly affect spirituality in the older adult. In addition, spirituality and religion help the aging adult cope with personal difficulties, stress, surgery, and chronic diseases. Finally, the development of spirituality in the aging adult incorporates the cultural wisdom and spiritual wisdom of elders.

Learner Outcomes

Notes

This is an asynchronous online course offered through the third party vendor ed2go. This course can be taken on either a PC, Mac, or Chromebook. The instructional materials required for this course are included in enrollment and will be available online. There are no set meeting times and you may work on the material whenever it is convenient for you. You will have access to all lessons until the course ends. However, the interactive discussion area that accompanies each lesson will automatically close two weeks after the lesson is released. As such, we strongly recommend that you complete each lesson within two weeks of its release.

Completion Requirements:

You must complete all lessons to receive your certificate. You must pass the final exam in all lessons with a score of 80% or higher AND complete the Evaluation Form in order to receive your Certificate of Completion. Finals are graded as Pass or No Pass. Receipt of your certificate indicates successful completion of the course and that you have passed all final exams with a score of 80% or greater. You may retake final exams as many times as necessary within the duration of the course at no additional charge.