What is Spiritual Care?
Spiritual care, also known as spiritual care counseling, is a supportive, relational practice where a trained spiritual care counselor provides emotional, psychological, and existential support to individuals facing illness, grief, loss, major life transitions, or times of emotional and existential strain.
While it can include religious support for those who desire it, spiritual care is much broader. It centers on the whole person—your search for meaning, connection, identity, and peace. It focuses on meaning-making, presence, inner resilience, and the stories and beliefs that shape your life.
At its core, spiritual care recognizes that humans are emotional and spiritual beings. Seasons of illness, loss, or uncertainty often bring deep questions: What has my life meant? Have I made a difference? Why did this happen? What happens next?
Spiritual care provides a compassionate space to explore these questions.
Who Is Spiritual Care For?
Spiritual care is for anyone navigating illness, grief, loss, or major life transitions—regardless of religious background or belief system. It is for:
Clients seeking guidance, reflection, or spiritual companionship through life’s challenges or questions of purpose
Patients desiring comfort, peace, or meaning in the midst of illness or the dying process
Families coping with uncertainty, grief, death, or difficult decisions
Caregivers carrying emotional or spiritual strain
Spiritual care is not a religious service. It is grounded in compassion, presence, and human connection—not converting, convincing, or pushing beliefs. Your worldview—religious, spiritual, secular, or unsure—is honored fully.
Spiritual Care and Mental Health Counseling
Unlike licensed mental health providers, spiritual care counselors do not diagnose, treat mental health conditions, or provide licensed mental health treatment. Our work is rooted in presence, meaning-making, and clinical spiritual assessment rather than psychological treatment plans.
At the same time, spiritual care is informed by counseling disciplines such as psychodynamic theory, trauma awareness, attachment-informed care, and neuropsychoanalytic insights about how the mind, body, and spirit interact. This allows us to hold space with sensitivity and depth while remaining within a non-clinical scope focused on spiritual, existential, and grief-centered support.
Spiritual care is best if you’re seeking grounding, comfort, or meaning during grief, illness, transitions, or seasons of uncertainty.
Mental health counseling is best for anxiety, depression, trauma, or emotional patterns that require clinical treatment or therapeutic tools.
If you’re not sure which path is right for you, reach out. We can help you explore what would be most helpful. Many people find that both types of care complement each other well.
Are Chaplains and Pastors the Same?
No. Pastors and chaplains both care deeply for people, but their roles are distinct.
Pastors serve within a specific faith tradition and congregation. Their work includes preaching, teaching, discipleship, and guiding their community according to the beliefs of their church.
Chaplains are interfaith, person-centered, and non-proselytizing. We are trained to support people of any belief system—including those who are doubting, questioning, rebuilding faith, or not religious at all.
Modern chaplaincy requires rigorous preparation, including training in spiritual assessment, psychodynamic and neuropsychoanalytic listening, grief and trauma support, identity exploration, and understanding diverse belief systems—all while practicing presence without agenda.