The dissertation begins with an autoethnographic account of my own experiences as a CPE chaplain resident and current PRN hospital chaplain in order to explore wider relationships between pastoral care and dominant health care trajectories and politics. Using empirical studies, personal accounts by health care professionals, and the political theories of Michel Foucault, I argue that current trends and practices in the hospital both marginalize those who cannot buy into the system and render the human experience of decline and death invisible. Chaplains contribute to these trends through their pastoral presence, assessment, and recording of the patientâs spirituality. These practices are heavily laden with the therapeutic ideals of acceptance and self-realization, which further medicineâs power and management of death rather than reckoning with the realities of loss in human experience. However, employing the theories of Julia Kristeva and Jean-Luc Nancy, I also argue that chaplains nonetheless experience a sense of loss in their work of care and articulate this loss with families and patients in the terms of spirituality. These experiences and language recognize and honor loss within the hospital, thus subverting the excesses of biomedicine today that can speak only of progress and commodification.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VANDERBILT/oai:VANDERBILTETD:etd-03202017-133115 |
| Date | 29 March 2017 |
| Creators | Coble, Richard Randolph |
| Contributors | Bonnie Miller-McLemore, Ellen Armour, Jaco Hamman, Kathryn Schwarz |
| Publisher | VANDERBILT |
| Source Sets | Vanderbilt University Theses |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.vanderbilt.edu/available/etd-03202017-133115/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to Vanderbilt University or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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