This textbook on palliative social work is a companion volume to the Oxford Textbook of Palliative Medicine and the Oxford Textbook of Palliative Nursing. To that end, this chapter will accomplish the following:

♦Spirituality is the most important way of coping for many patients, families, and their intimate network.

♦Confrontation with a life-threatening illness can spur spiritual growth in patients, families, their intimate network, and the staff who work with them.

♦Palliative social workers have an important role in addressing spirituality with clients.

♦Spirituality can be defined in two dimensions: (1) philosophy of life, which is an intellectual dimension that includes philosophical, religious, nonreligious, and existential perspectives; and (2) unity consciousness, which is an experiential dimension that includes direct spiritual experience.

♦Transpersonal social work, Jungian theory, the biopsychosocial-spiritual model of care, along with deep ecology, can provide frameworks for interventions.