Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rcrh6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T20:28:50.506Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Psycho-oncology: Searching for practical wisdom?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 January 2015

Helen Butlin
Helen Butlin*
Affiliation:
London Regional Cancer Program, London Health Sciences Centre, London, Ontario, Canada
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Helen Butlin, Specialist in Spiritual Care (Canadian Association of Spiritual Care), London Regional Cancer Program, London Health Sciences Centre, 790 Commissioners Road East, London, Ontario, Canada, N6A 4L6. E-Mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The debate is vigorous in psycho-oncology about whether spiritual, existential, and psychosocial are the most comprehensive terms for academic research discourses investigating meaning and purpose. A call-to-action email from the International Society of Psycho-Oncology included the term soul. The current essay highlights the historical and contemporary uses of “soul” to suggest that the re-emergent soul signifies a tacit quest for an “intangible” that seems missing in current constructs of clinical domains reflected in the vigor of the debates. It is suggested that the re-emergence of the pre-Medieval meaning(s) of the notion of soul affirms a growing need for integrative paradigms on “being human” to guide psycho-oncology practitioners and their research. As a paradigmatic example, a clinical support group entitled Soul Medicine is described as employing the term soul to open up the more marginal discourses about experiences of illness arising from philosophical reflection, arts, humanities, and spirituality within a clinical oncology context. A link between soul and wisdom is suggested for further exploration with the view that phronesis (“the virtue of practical wisdom”), an emerging concept in health professional education research, is of ultimate value to the people psycho-oncology seeks to serve. This group holds that garnering wisdom from the expertise of those living with cancer should be a central aim of our field.

Type
Essay/Personal Reflections
Information
Palliative & Supportive Care , Volume 13 , Issue 5 , October 2015 , pp. 1495 - 1500
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Back, A.L., Trinidad, S.B., Hopley, E.K., et al. (2014). Reframing the goals of care conversation: “We're in a different place.” Journal of Palliative Medicine, 17(9), 1019–1024. doi: 10.1089/jpm.2013.0651.Google Scholar
Bates, D. (2009). Keynote address: Medicine and the soul of science. Canadian Bulletin of Medical History, 26(1), 23–84.Google Scholar
Battler [Butlin], H. (2010). Soul medicine: Targeted therapy for the fear factor. Oral presented at the International Psycho-Oncology Society Conference (IPOS), Quebec, Canada.Google Scholar
Battler [Butlin], H. (2011). Soul medicine: Targeted therapy for the fear factor. Poster presented at the Multi-National Supportive Care Conference (MASCC), Athens, Greece.Google Scholar
Breitbart, W. (2002). Spirituality and meaning in supportive care: Spirituality- and meaning-centered group psychotherapy interventions in advanced cancer. Supportive Care in Cancer, 10(4), 272–280. Epub August 28, 2001. Available from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3648880/.Google Scholar
Breitbart, W. (2009). The spiritual domain of palliative care: Who should be “spiritual care professionals”? Palliative & Supportive Care, 7(2), 139–141. Available from http://resolver.scholarsportal.info/resolve/14789515/v07i0002/139_tsdopcwsbcp.xml.Google Scholar
Breitbart, W.S. & Alici, Y. (2009). Psycho-oncology. Harvard Review of Psychiatry, 17(6), 361–376. doi: 10.3109/10673220903465700.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Brennan, J. (2006). A conflation of existential and spiritual beliefs: Letter to the editor. Psycho-Oncology, 15, 933–934.Google Scholar
Broyard, A. (1992). Intoxicated by my illness. New York: Clarkson N. Potter.Google Scholar
Byrne, J. (1999). Treating the cells and the soul. Michigan Health & Hospitals, 35(5), 24.Google Scholar
Cornett, C. (1998). The soul of psychotherapy: Recapturing the spiritual dimension in the therapeutic encounter. New York: The Free Press.Google Scholar
de Pablo, A.G. & Evans, N.J.R. (1994). The medicine of the soul: The origin and development of thought on the soul, diseases of the soul and their treatment, in Medieval and Renaissance medicine. History of Psychiatry, 5(20), 483–516. doi: 10.1177/0957154X9400502003.Google Scholar
Dolan, B. (2007). Soul searching: A brief history of the mind/body debate in the neuorsciences. Neurosurgical Focus, 23(1), 1–7.Google Scholar
Fenwick, T. (2014). Sociomateriality in medical practice and learning: Attuning to what matters. Medical Education, 48(1), 44–52. doi: 10.1111/medu.12295.Google Scholar
Finlay, L. (2011). Phenomenology for therapists: Researching the lived world. Oxford: Wiley & Sons.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frank, A.W. (1995). The wounded storyteller: Body, illness and ethics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Freeman, M. (1998 a). Experience, narrative, and the relationship between them. Narrative Inquiry, 8(2), 455–466. doi: 10.1075/ni.8.2.16fre.Google Scholar
Freeman, M. (1998 b). Mythical time, historical time, and the narrative fabric of the self. Narrative Inquiry, 8(1), 27–50. doi: 10.1075/ni.8.1.03fre.Google Scholar
Gale, A. (2009). The battle between the AMA and the FTA for the soul of medicine. Missouri Medicine, 106(6), 389–392.Google Scholar
Hacking, I. (1995). Rewriting the soul. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Hankinson, R.J. (2009). Medicine and the science of soul. Canadian Bulletin of Medical History, 26(1), 129–154. Available from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19831301.Google ScholarPubMed
Harvey, P. (1997). Minding body and soul. The Health Services Journal, 107(5579), 28–29.Google ScholarPubMed
Hill, E. (2005). Higher ground: Pointing America's physicians back to the soul of medicine. Journal of the Mississippi State Medical Association, 46(8), 257–259.Google Scholar
Holland, J. & Lewis, S. (2000). The human side of cancer: Living with hope, coping with uncertainty. New York: Harper & Row. (See chap. 2, “The tyranny of positive thinking.”)Google Scholar
Johnson, M. (2007). The meaning of the body. New York/London: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Kalschad, D. (2013). Trauma and the soul: A pscyho-spiritual approach to human development and its interruption. Howe, East Sussex: Routledge.Google Scholar
Kinsella, E.A. (2006). Poetic resistance: Juxtaposing personal and professional discursive construction in a practice context. Journal of the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies, 4(1), 35–49.Google Scholar
Kinsella, E.A. (2012 a). Knowledge paradigms in occupational science: Pluralistic perspectives. In Occupational science: Society, inclusion, participation. Whihteford, G..E. & Hocking, C. (eds.), pp. 69–85. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.Google Scholar
Kinsella, E.A. (2012 b). Practitioner reflection and judgment as phronesis: A continuum of reflection and considerations for phronetic judgment. In Phronesis as professional knowledge: Practical wisdom in the professions. Kinsella, E.A. & Pitman, A. (eds.), pp. 35–52. Rotterdam, Netherlands: Sense Publishers.Google Scholar
Kuczewski, M.G. (2007). The soul of medicine. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 50(3), 410–420. doi: 10.1353/pbm.2007.0033.Google Scholar
Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M. (2003). Metaphors we live by. Chicago: Chicago University Press.Google Scholar
Lazenby, J.M. (2010). On “spirituality,” “religion,” and “religions”: A concept analysis. Palliative & Supportive Care, 8(4), 469–476. doi: 10.1017/S1478951510000374.Google Scholar
Mattingly, C. (1998). In search of the good: Narrative reasoning in clinical practice. Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 12, 273–297. doi: 10.1525/maq.1998.12.3.273.Google Scholar
Mattingly, C. & Hayes, M.H. (1994). Clinical reasoning: Forms of inquiry in clinical practice. Philadelphia: F.A. Davies Company.Google Scholar
Mehl-Madrona, L. (2007). Narrative medicine: The use of history and story in the healing process. Rochester, VT: Bear & Company.Google Scholar
Moore, T. (1989). A blue fire: Selected writings of James Hillman. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Moore, T. (2010). Care of the soul in medicine. Carlsbad, CA: Hay House.Google Scholar
Murray, T.J. (2000). Personal time: The patient's experience. Annals of Internal Medicine, 132, 58–62.Google Scholar
Peteet, J. & D'Ambra, M. (2011). The soul of medicine: Spiritual perspectives and clinical practice. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Picard, C. (1997). Embodied soul in nursing. Journal of Holistic Nursing, 15(1), 1–13.Google Scholar
Polkinghorne, D.E. (2004). Embodied reason. In Practice and the human sciences: The case for a judgment-based practice of care, pp. 129–150. Albany: State University of New York Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Puchalski, C.M., Vitillo, R., Hull, S.K., et al. (2014). Improving the spiritual dimension of whole person care: Reaching national and international consensus. Journal of Palliative Medicine, 17(6), 642–656. doi: 10.1089/jpm.2014.9427.Google Scholar
Rabow, M.W., Remen, R.N., Parmelee, D.X., et al. (2010). Professional formation: Extending medicine's lineage of service into the next century. Academic Medicine: Journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges, 85(2), 310–317. doi: 10.1097/ACM.0b013e3181c887f7.Google Scholar
Reece, R. (2000). Preserving the soul of medicine and physicians: A talk with David Whyte. Physician Executive, 26(2), 14–19.Google Scholar
Remen, R.N. (2006). Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D.: Recovering the soul of medicine. Intervivew by Karolyn A. Gazella and Suzanne Snyder. Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine, 12(3), 86–94.Google Scholar
Remen, R.N. (2008). Practicing a medicine of the whole person: An opportunity for healing. Hematology/Oncology Clinics of North America, 22(4), 767–773. doi: 10.1016/j.hoc.2008.04.001.Google Scholar
Salander, P. (2006). Who needs the concept of spirituality? Psycho-Oncology, 15, 647–649.Google Scholar
Salander, P. (2014). Whether “spirituality” can be a meaningful concept is still open to question. Palliative & Supportive Care, 1–2. Epub ahead of print May 20.Google Scholar
Sinclair, S. & Pereira, J. (2006). Collective soul: The spirituality of an interdisciplinary palliative care tem. Palliative & Supportive Care, 4, 13–24.Google Scholar
Smythe, E.A., Ironside, P.M., Sims, S.L., et al. (2008). Doing Heideggerian hermeneutic research: A discussion paper. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 45(9), 1389–1397. doi: 10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2007.09.005.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
St. James O'Conner, T., Lund, K., & Berendsen, P. (eds.) (2013). Psychotherapy: Cure of the soul. Waterloo, ON: Waterloo Lutheran Seminary.Google Scholar
Statistics Canada (2014). Leading causes of death. Available from http://www.statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum-som/l01/cst01/hlth36a-eng.htm.Google Scholar
Sulmasy, D.P. (2002). A biopsychosocial–spiritual model for the care of patients at the end of life. The Gerontologist, 42(Spec. No. 3), 24–33. Available from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12415130.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
van Manen, M. (1997). Researching lived experience, 2nd ed. Toronto: Althouse Press.Google Scholar
Vos, J. (2014). Meaning and existential givens in the lives of cancer patients: A philosophical perspective on psycho-oncology. Palliative & Supportive Care, 12(9), 1–16. doi: 10.1017/S1478951514000790.Google Scholar
Wein, S. (2014). Spirituality: The psyche or soul? Palliative & Supportive Care, 12(2), 91–94. doi: 10.1017/S1478951514000303.Google Scholar
Yoshikawa, N. (2009). Holy medicine and diseases of the soul: Henry of Lancaster and Le Livre de Seyntz medicines. Medical History, 53(3), 397–414.Google Scholar