Integrating ‘Spirituality’ in Social Work—Challenges and Opportunities

The existence of spirituality throughout human history and in all the communities calls for serious examination of its value for the mental health of the population in general and social work practice in particular. There is a major rethink in the broad area of mental health towards the need to think of mental health and not only mental illnesses; interventions in terms of addressing the larger social determinants and; to utilise fully the community-level resources for the mental health of the population. In this context, there has been a growing recognition of social, religious and spiritual factors that contribute to the mental health of individuals, families and communities. The growing evidence for the importance of spirituality has implications for social work practice. This can be seen at four levels. Firstly, people with spiritual practices are known to live longer and have better quality of life. Secondly, in the face of adverse life situations like exposure to conflicts/disasters, living with life-threatening illnesses like cancer, chronic heart and kidney diseases, ageing, loneliness, refugee status, people with spiritual orientation respond with greater resilience. Thirdly, caregiving, a growing need all over the world, benefits from spirituality. Fourthly, in mental disorders treatment spirituality has importance both as part of the treatment and associated with better treatment acceptance and outcomes. Based on the currently available evidence, there is value in integrating spirituality for the benefit of the mental health of individuals, families and communities. All of these aspects of spirituality are in line with social work practice, which recognises the value of community resources for mental health. The current chapter examines this issue from the following aspects: (i) research evidence of spirituality and health/mental health; (ii) research on spirituality and serious medical illnesses; (iii) spirituality and suicide; (iv) spirituality and HIV/AIDS; (v) spirituality and loneliness; (vi) experiences of application of spirituality in cancer care; (vii) caregivers of special children. Last but not the least, the chapter explicates the implications of these developments for social workers’ training and practice.