‘Longing for wholeness’–inpatients’ descriptions of spiritual experiences in specialized mental health care: A phenomenological study

Abstract

Mental health care has seen an increasing recognition that professionals should support patients’ spiritual needs. This implies working towards greater acceptance of spiritual concerns and emphasizes the importance of spirituality for many clients, while no longer dismissing the spiritual content of psychotic communication as merely ‘illness’. In mental health care, research reveals a need to develop new, respectful, and less stigmatizing ways of collaborating with clients. This study aimed to describe inpatients’ spiritual experiences in specialized mental health care. The study used a qualitative design with a phenomenological approach. Twelve in-depth interviews were conducted in two psychiatric hospitals in Norway. Giorgi’s phenomenological method guided the analysis. ‘Longing for wholeness’ appeared as an overall structure of the participants’ descriptions. This structure was dependent on four constituents, ‘feeling alienated and isolated’, ‘connection to divine powers’, ‘the need to experience love in relationships’ and finally, ‘activities to enhance coping’. This study calls for mental health professionals to facilitate open spaces to explore the spiritual aspects of the whole person in care and to recognise this as a resource for recovery.