ABSTRACT
Because of the psychological one-on-one focus of helping, caregivers can easily neglect and ignore the social focus of spiritual care. Spirituality is frequently seen as the part of the person that is personal and private, a personal piety. Spiritual people are sometimes stereotyped as not involved in the affairs of this world (Doran, 1984). For many, social responsibility and justice are usually not associated with spirituality. Spirituality is seen as interior holiness, and justice is looked upon as an external practice concerned with changing society. People live their spirituality. How does their spirituality relate to a concern for or even an advocacy for social justice? Of course, people have responsibilities to society and their neighbors. We are God’s hands in the world. However, our focus is usually individuals helping other individuals rather than changing environments and systems that greatly affect the spiritual health of individual lives. Our nineteenthcentury personal style of spirituality sees justice mostly as individual acts. However, the way in which the structures of our society and world affect gender, class, sexuality, race, and health really matters in spiritual care. As such, we need to expand the focus of our spiritual care beyond the individual helping relationship into social structures and systems. We need to facilitate better societal structures, which facilitate spiritual health as part of whole-person health care.
