Spirituality and Palliative Care: Social and Pastoral Perspectives provides an overview of issues involved in offering spiritual care in contemporary Western society, with a particular focus on implications for palliative care. This book is shaped by the conviction that palliative care needs to incorporate relevant and informed approaches to spiritual care in order to continue to develop as an holistic, life-affirming discipline. For this to occur, spiritual care should draw upon social and cultural analyses of contemporary spirituality and health care practice and on the resources of various religious traditions. The book seeks to avoid both the apologetic interests inherent in many religious approaches to spiritual care and the individualistic subjective approach that characterises much non-religious writing on spiritual care. Contributors are drawn from the disciplines of health sociology, pastoral care, philosophy, and religious studies. This path-breaking book is invaluable for students practising spiritual care in all disciplines but particularly those in health care, religious studies, or the social sciences. It is also of interest to those in the palliative care field - health care practitioners, managers and educators - who seek a better understanding of the contribution of spiritual care to palliative care.