Professionalization

Professionalization of the spiritual caretaker is not a phenomenon that we are only discovering recently. Right from the start of the mental health profession, there are ideas about what the professional identity should be, or what skills should be part of it. There are various developments in thinking about this. Are spiritual carers mainly those who are present (presence theory) or are they allowed to use targeted interventions and can they measure the effect of their actions?

Niels den Toom does research into the effect of the case studies project on the performances of spiritual carers. What happens when spiritual carers become researchers? What does this do with their professional identity? Renske Kruizinga has also done research into this, read the results of her study here.