Health Care
Nurse practitioners need to work with all types of people, from many different faith backgrounds. Generally, they are not expected to know the intimate details of any particular religion, but they should have a generalized knowledge of how different spiritual beliefs can influence the healing process. While this can be a fairly easy process to acquire knowledge about major religious groups, there are many minority spirituality groups in the United States, being a very diverse society. Three that come to mind are Wicca, Druid and Native American religious traditions. This paper will analyze these different systems of spirituality in the context of how they affect healing in particular, as this is the area that will most affect the nurse practitioner's role.
Wicca
There are a variety of sources that provide insight into the Wicca view of healing. The Wiccan belief system is considered to be a pagan belief system, but is known for having a high degree of variance between practitioners. This is because Wicca is based somewhat loosely on ancient religious traditions, and has only limited formal form as a faith. Thus, each Wiccan person individualizes elements of Wiccan faith. Core principles that should be common to all Wiccans are a belief in either duotheism (God and Goddess) or pantheism, which reflects that everything in the universe is part of divinity. Wiccans also believe strongly in natural cycles, their beliefs hailing from a time in human history when seasons, night and day and other natural cycles were an integral part of life.
While Wiccans may present at a health care facility, it is probably not the first choice for many. Wiccans believe in spells as a critical part of healing. These spells are seldom part of evidence-based practice, but they are part of the Wiccan belief system, and it is expected that they contribute to the healing process. Where they do, however, it is as placebo rather than by actual medical effectiveness. Spirits are also an important...
People take on energies from the world around them, and this can affect their healing processes (Dragonsong, 2014). One of the roles in spells in Wiccan healing is to effect this energy and transform it into a powerful healing force.
Druids
Druidic religions are similar to Wicca. They are a class of neopagan faiths that are loosely based on ancient, pre-Christian religious tradition. Whereas Wicca is focused on certain metaphysical aspects such as spirits, pantheism and energies, Druidic religions tend to be more earthbound, focused on nature and the natural world. Because druids are not organized in meaningful way, druidic beliefs can vary significantly from one druid to another. There is less information available about healing in the druidic tradition than in Wicca, hinting that it is not as important, which might make sense in the context that most druids believe in reincarnation.
Druidic healing is largely a spiritual endeavor. The focal point is on having an enhanced spirituality, and an emphasis on rejuvenating the spirit or soul as much as the body (No author, 2014). This seems to be a key point for nurse practitioners, as the emphasis on holistic healing echoes Nightingale, Sister Callista Roy and Betty Neuman among other holistic thinkers. Emphasis on creating a healing environment, and the interconnectedness of the different elements of the external and internal environments is important for Druids in their healing.
Native American Traditions
Each Native American tribe has its own healing traditions and they can be quite different from one another. The American Cancer Society (2008) notes that "medicine is more about healing the person than curing a disease," which reflects Native American spiritual views about the connection between man and nature, and their orientation to time, which is…
