Spirituality and Pain

Every year, hundreds of Christians pilgrimage to sacred destinations like Lourdes, France, to beseech and pray to recover from their illnesses. Buddhists use meditation as a healing practice. Practically every religion has rites and rituals aimed at curing physical infirmities. Spirituality and faith can play an important role in medicine, but this resource seldom gets put to use systematically and professionally.

The MESR – Medicine, Ethics, Spirituality and Religions coordination office at UZH wants to change that. But how?

To approach this complex challenge, a kickoff symposium was held on 25 June on the subject of pain, which is omnipresent in the field of medicine and patient care. Some 1.5 million people in Switzerland suffer from pain, almost 40% of them chronically, Beatrice Beck Schimmer, Vice President Medicine at UZH, said in her introductory speech, in which she stressed that the big questions in medicine can only be answered by collaborating across disciplines.

This is why two UZH faculties are involved in the MESR coordination office: the Faculty of Theology and the Study of Religion (TRF) and the Faculty of Medicine (MeF). And this little “road show,” as TRF dean Michael Coors called it in his welcoming address, was aimed at identifying common ground and research interests, he said.

Experts with widely different perspectives were given a chance to speak at the symposium: on subjects ranging from an introduction to the neurobiology of pain to ethical issues in dealing with pain, as well as on topics ranging from case reports on patients who find motivation in their suffering to productively explore psychological causes and influences to computational psychosomatics, an emerging field that uses mathematical models, data analytics and AI to try to model how psychological factors, the brain and physical symptoms interrelate.

More than 80 people attended the presentations, which were followed by lively brief discussion rounds. Simon Peng-Keller has been conducting interdisciplinary research on the interrelations between faith, spirituality and pain for years at the Chair for Spiritual Care at UZH. In his presentation, he pointed out that over 60% of the respondents in a survey of chronic pain sufferers stated that they wanted spiritual aspects to be integrated into their treatment, regardless of their religious affiliation.

David Blum, the medical director of the Palliative Care Competence Center at University Hospital Zurich, together with academic associate Markus Schettle, reported on the provision of end-of-life care for people. They showed that spiritual concerns are common among terminally ill people and that they extend far beyond religious matters. They related that many patients experience dreams and visions at the end of life that are often connected with solace or inner reconciliation, for example. They reported that many people are occupied with looking back on life and on relationship and family dynamics shortly before death.
Spiritual and existential dimensions, the two physicians concluded, are essential to gaining an understanding of pain, suffering and end-of-life care. At the same time, they underscored the importance of close interaction between clinical care, research and teaching, as well as the importance of interdisciplinary dialogue.

The symposium provided a glimpse into the variety of perspectives that are to be brought together in the MESR coordination office in the future. The objective of the platform is to raise the visibility of existing research activities, to identify common issues, to promote scientific dialogue and to spur collaborations.

The dedicated MESR webpage and annual specialist symposiums are to contribute to achieving that goal. Envisaged topics are priority subjects like religious/spiritual diversity or interculturality, for instance also in view of differences in values held by medical and pastoral professionals and the people to whom they provide care.