A Short History of Documenting Spiritual Care

Abstract

The first chapter of this edited volume traces the history of documenting spiritual care. By referring to ancient and early modern practices, the relationship between spiritual (self-) care and various forms of documentation is outlined. The focus lies on developments in the twentieth and the twenty-first century, although the question of what constitutes an adequate practice of documenting healthcare chaplaincy is as old as the profession itself. The pioneers of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) - Richard Cabot, Anton Boisen, Russell L. Dicks, and others - developed distinctive forms of recording for different purposes. For example, procedures of documentation that are prepared for and helpful to the pastors themselves as “self-criticism, " “self-improvement, " or even “self-revelation” have been distinguished from documentation practices that are intra- or interprofessional. Regarding more recent developments in documentation, the introduction of electronic patient records (EMRs) was critical. We present a case study from Kenya to show how the issues discussed here are encountered in a non-Euro-American context.