ABSTRACT
Spiritual care in the context of dying requires special attention by professionals. In the Netherlands, spiritual caregivers act as ritual guides to support people’s transformation of identity in a personal, interpersonal and trans-personal sense. Though these rituals are often performed outside traditional religious repertoires they still try to help dying persons and their loved ones with the reorientation required by the farewells they have to make. This chapter seeks to clarify both the nature of these rituals and the competence of spiritual caregivers by exploring the concepts of ‘sacramentality’ in its symbolic and performative dimension.
