After a long absence, spirituality is returning to health care. Recent studies have suggested that religious participation reduces the incidence of illness, that church attendance accelerates recovery, that intercessory prayer (when one person prays for someone else's recovery) speeds healing, and that prayer and meditation can measurably reduce emotional and physical distress. As a result, healthcare researchers and caregivers are turning to religion and spirituality as potential new allies in their efforts to heal.

Such an interest might be expected in systems like Advocate, with its strong heritage of religious affiliation. However, even faith-based organizations have often viewed religion and spirituality as a means of comfort and emotional support rather than a means of healing. Today, not only faith-based organizations but also non-religious healthcare providers are examining the potential benefits of incorporating spirituality into their treatment programs.

In daily clinical practice, healthcare practitioners are coming to see the patient's spirituality as essential to treating that patient as a whole person. In the doctor's office and at the hospital bedside, an increasing number of physicians are engaging in prayer with their patients, and medical and nursing schools have begun integrating religion and spirituality into their curricula.

Like all innovations, however, these developments have potential complications. For one thing, the current turn to spirituality often raises the question of just what "spirituality" means. In addition, when a patient and a practitioner from different traditions interact, they may encounter difficulties communicating because they speak different spiritual languages.

Such complications suggest a variety of practical and ethical questions: Is there potential for abuse of authority by a physician who wants to initiate prayer or spiritual discussion? How does the would-be spiritual practitioner demonstrate or develop respect for the diversity of beliefs and practices? If providers begin to take patients' spirituality into account, should such "treatment" be accompanied by an informed consent process? Should spiritual conversations be charted, and if so, should they be subject to a higher standard of confidentiality than other psychosocial information?

Advocate is addressing these questions in several specific ways. First, a task force to address the possibilities and challenges that spirituality presents to Advocate as a faith-based organization has recently begun working. Second, this year's Advocate ethics conference, held April 23, took up the theme, "Spirituality in Clinical Care: Ethical Principles Meet Personal Faith."

From the perspective of modern medicine, the idea that spirituality should be taken seriously sounds new and is intriguing at least in part because of its novelty. From a historic perspective, though, the assumption that spirituality plays a role in health is a long-established one with what many would call an honorable past. It may be that we have come full circle and that a positive role for spirituality in health care is an idea whose time has come.