Ritual in Palliative Care

Spirituality refers to the human predilection to find meaning, purpose, connection, and transcendence through an endless variety of beliefs, values, traditions, and practices that span cultures, religions, and eras. Spirituality includes religious beliefs and practices, and yet as religious belief and engagement decline in some parts of the globe, spirituality has also come to include beliefs and practices that are not tied to any particular religious tradition. Rituals, or actions that have been imbued with symbolic meaning and significance, are no longer only religious rites, ceremonies, traditions, or sacraments. Rituals are now a part of organisational and wellness cultures as well. People living with a serious illness and the people who care for them have spiritual needs, and palliative care best practice includes attention to the spiritual needs of patients, family members, and the professionals who work in palliative care. One spiritual intervention provided by spiritual care professionals is ritual facilitation. This chapter explores ritual facilitation in palliative care clinical practice. Ritual facilitation includes the individual, communal, formal, informal, repeated, occasional, literal, and metaphorical actions that help patients, family members, individual clinicians, and interdisciplinary teams find meaning, purpose, and transcendence in the midst of challenging circumstances.