16/01/2026
PSYCHOSPIRITUAL CARE.
By: Chap. Matthew Ngobua.
Psychospiritual care is a hybrid of care practice which approves the unification of psychological approaches and spiritual principles / religious rituals / sacraments in the provision of care to Care receivers.
Psychospiritual care agrees with the combination of Psychological First Aid ( PFA) and Spiritual First Aid ( SFA) during administration of First Aid. This is known as Psychospiritual First Aid.
A human being is made up.of three components:
1. Body
2. Soul - emotion, mind, will, feeling, intellect and conscience.
3. Spirit - human spirit.
Advocates of psychospiritual care argue that for any care package to be beneficial to a care receiver, HOLISTIC CARE should be taken into consideration. That is a care package that attends to the needs of the body, spirit and soul. Chap Prof David Mike- Jacobs refers to this type of care as BIOPSYCHOSPIRITUAL CARE.
In this wise,
psychospiritual care targets the care for human spirit and the Soul, while the Medical professionals target the care for the body.
That is why Chaplains are also known as Doctors / Physicians of the Soul and human spirit.
The use of Talk - therapies and others like music and drama therapies are recommended. It must be noted that Psychospiritual therapists do not recommend drugs or medication. The competence here is to effectively combine psychological talk therapy and spiritual talk therapy to plan and administer care.
The essence of psychospiritual care is to build resilience/ coping capacity to enable healing / recovery.
Chaplaincy is indeed an interesting ministry, profession, academic discipline and a corps.
