Spiritual dimensions of dying in pluralist societies

“Man is not destroyed by suffering; he is destroyed by suffering without meaning.”

VE Frankl1

Palliative care is about helping people die well, but how do we know how to “die well”? In all cultures, sacred stories, proverbs, and rituals around death exist to help people prepare to die. Death and dying were keystones of the grand narrative of religion. But religions, in Western cultures, are disappearing, and grand narratives have been replaced by worldviews driven by individual success that are not so much death denying as blind to death.

In this article, we reflect on the spiritual needs of the dying and on how these needs can best be understood and met in pluralist societies. An assumption underpinning our approach is that the core aspects of spirituality are common to all people, although the external manifestations of spirituality and spiritual need are many and varied. Where appropriate, key issues are illustrated with data from our qualitative studies investigating the end of life experiences of patients and their social and professional carers in a range of populations.2 3 4