In the 2024 issue of The Journal of Social Work in End of Life and Palliative Care, my Palliative Care Social Work (PCSW) colleagues Maxxine Rattner & Cheryl-Anne Cait lift the value of PCSW interventions to help alleviate suffering. They define “non-physical suffering” as “suffering that may be emotional, psychological, social, spiritual and/or existential in nature (Rattner, 2022)”. Based in Canada at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, the social work faculty members interviewed palliative care providers and asked about their experiences on the front line of providing relief for suffering with patients living with serious illness.
Reflecting on my own years of experience as a palliative care social worker, the work we do is not as clear-cut as being able to prescribe medication for a symptom or titrate pain medication. The art of the intervention for social work takes time, patience, and congruent presence. To the layperson, it may appear that our interventions are just to talk with people. But that is just a small piece of the beauty and grace that evolves from our work.
There’s something magical, transcendent, about being present with a person’s suffering and to help them make sense of it and how to cope and thrive in spite of the psychosocial pain. And as we are well aware in palliative care, physical suffering and psychological/existential pain is inextricably bound. Our role is to move a person from hopelessness and despair to self-awareness and hopefulness. We also are skilled in therapeutic interventions like motivational interviewing, existential counseling, mindfulness counseling, narrative therapy, and cognitive behavioral therapy. Reframing, normalizing, and validating are some techniques that we integrate into our clinical practice to help patients living with serious illness feel heard, respected, and safe as we lead them on a journey into the depths of their minds and hearts.
Rattner and Cait’s article can be found here:
Rattner, M. and C A Cait. 2024. Nonphysical Suffering: An Under-Resourced and Key Role for Hospice and Palliative Care Social Workers. The Journal of Social Work in End of Life and Palliative Care, Vol 20, No. 1, 8–25. https://doi.org/10.1080/15524256.2023.2272590
And the breadth and value of the palliative care social worker is described here: