DOI:10.6129/CJP.201912_61(4).0007
Chinese Journal of Psychology 2019, Vol.61, No.4, 393-416
A Holistic Model of Hospice Palliative Care for Counseling Psychologists
Ping-Hwa Chen（Department of Educational Psychology and Counseling, National Taiwan Normal University）；Yi-Huei Huang（Department of Educational Psychology and Counseling, National Taiwan Normal University）
Abstract
The development of hospice palliative care in Taiwan has a thirty-year history. Although the need of providing a holistic hospice palliative care for patients and their families has gradually been recognized, it still has a long way to go to fully put it into clinical practice. Traditionally, counseling psychologists are well trained to provide psycho-social evaluations and interventions for the clients. But for terminally ill patients, they need a bio-psycho-social-culturalspiritual holistic care, including pain control and symptom management, care for social and spiritual needs, and culturally appropriate interventions. A majority of counseling psychologists who work with terminally ill patients and their families still lack the knowledge and training in this holistic approach to palliative care. In the present article, authors reviewed past research literature and compiled them into five themes, including: 1. the bio-psycho-social-culturalspiritual holistic care model for hospice palliative patients, 2. the professional competencies required for palliative care counseling psychologists, 3. the role and function of palliative care counseling psychologists, 4. the salient religious and spiritual needs of palliative care patients, and 5. the multicultural competencies of caring for patients and their families from diverse cultural backgrounds. After literature review, the authors proposed five suggestions for future counseling psychologists who will work with palliative patients and family members. Suggestions included: 1. To develop and research the bio-psycho-social-cultural-spiritual holistic care model in clinical practice, 2. To enhance palliative counseling psychologists’ professional competencies by receiving more educational trainings, 3. To promote palliative counseling psychologists’ roles and functions by the collaboration between educational institutes and professional organizations, 4. To strengthen counseling psychologists’ proficiencies of caring for palliative patients’ spiritual needs, 5. To become competent palliative counseling psychologists working with patients from diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds. In the end, the authors drew the conclusion and proposed the limitation of the article.
Keywords: bio-psycho-social-cultural-spiritual holistic care model, counseling psychologists, hospice palliative care, multi-culture, spiritual care
