Spirituality and Pain

Original Editor - Kakshya Rupakheti

Top Contributors - Sehriban Ozmen and Kakshya Rupakheti  

Spirituality

Meditating in lotus-pose

Spirituality can be broadly defined as an experience with the transcendent or sacred that provides a strong sense of identity or direction, which often affects a person's beliefs, attitudes, emotions, and behaviour but is also important to a sense of meaning and purpose in life.

Refining the concept more inclusively and accurately is very important since four types of definitions of spirituality below are found in health research until recently:

1. Spirituality as a synonym for religiosity;
2. Spirituality related to supernatural beliefs (but excluding the institutional component of religiosity)
3. Spirituality in a supposedly large sense, but with implicit religious elements (e.g., the idea of something “transcendent”)
4. Spirituality as a dimension constitutive of human beings in general that does not depend on the adoption of beliefs and may or may not involve explicit or implicit religious elements.

Characteristics of Spirituality

The researchers identified five characteristics of spirituality and provided common definitions for each attribute. The five attributes and their definitions are:

1. Meaning - the ontological significance of life; making sense of life situations; deriving purpose in existence.
2. Value - beliefs and standards that are cherished; having to do with the truth, beauty, and worth of thought, object or behaviour; often discussed as ‘ultimate values.’
3. Transcendence - experience and appreciation of a dimension beyond the self; expanding self-boundaries.
4. Connecting - relationships with self, others, God/Higher Power, and the environment.
5. Becoming - an unfolding of life that demands reflection and experience; includes a sense of who one is and how one knows among other things.

Spiritual Pain

Illueca et al. proposed a consistent definition of spiritual pain based on a database search:

"Spiritual pain is a self-identified experience of personal discomfort, or actual or potential harm, triggered by a threat to a person’s relationship with God or a higher power. Spiritual pain becomes clinically significant when it interferes with one’s functionality and prevents one from entering the transcendent spaces of spiritual practices temporarily or permanently."

Spiritual Health

Yoga poses

Spiritual health is about the connection with self (personal dimension), others (social dimension), nature (the environment) and God (transcendental dimension). The basic characteristics of spiritual health are as follows: proper lifestyle, connection with others, asking about the meaning and purpose of life, and transcendence.

Spiritual health is positively related to physical health, for instance, it may help patients experience lesser pain and also help to maintain mental well-being.

Spirituality beliefs have great significance at the time of illness, in maximum cases it helps an individual to accept their illness and often helps individuals plan for their future well-being.

Spirituality develops better strategies to face the disease with a positive impact on the quality of life.

Spiritual support and connection help to reduce depression and anxiety, and give a greater sense of peace and calm. It can be due to multiple factors like increased self-efficacy, spiritual and social support, distraction, relaxation and positive reappraisal.

Spirituality in Dealing with Pain

Spirituality is regarded as an active and positive coping process in the management of pain with many positive effects. Trust in god, a conscious and healthy way of living, as well as positive attitudes, are found to be effective ways of dealing with pain.

Individuals who are associated with spiritual and religious activity have a higher level of pain tolerance and a higher level of psychological well-being.

Spirituality and Pain Management

Reiki therapy session

As pain is a complex phenomenon that is influenced by many nonphysiological factors such as spiritual factors, health professionals should be aware of it in terms of their patient's experience of and response to the pain.

A systemic review study, which examined different spiritual interventions used for alleviating cancer pain including dignity therapy, prayer-based therapy, focused narrative intervention, spiritually focused therapy, electronic support groups, mindfulness-based art therapy, peer-helping, mindfulness-based stress reduction and spiritually-focused music therapy concluded that most methods have little to no effect on decreasing pain and they can be used as a complementary element in the treatment since it has no side effects but also a higher level of evidence is needed to determine the most effective spiritual intervention for cancer pain management.

Resources

• Mindfulness Meditation in Chronic Pain Management
• Chronic Pain and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: An Integrative Review
• Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for chronic pain on functioning: A systematic review of randomized controlled trials,
• Yoga for Pain: What the Science Says
• Healing Arts and Expressive Therapies in an Interdisciplinary Team
• Utilizing Music Therapy to Manage Chronic Pain
• Music Therapy for Pain Management, American Music Therapy Association, Inc.
• Music Therapy and Its Role in Pain Control
• The effect of reiki on pain: A meta-analysis