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In July 2017 over 200 delegates principally from across the North but also from other parts of the UK and from overseas, attended the second conference on Spirituality, Compassion and Mental Health. Held at the University of Huddersfield, the conference was jointly organised by the University and the South West Yorkshire Partnership HNS Foundation Trust.
I had signed up for the conference mainly out of curiosity because some of my clients have been very open about their spirituality and also because the keynote speaker was Dr Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury. I found myself joining a variety of delegates from the health and social care settings, the voluntary sector, faith communities and that included carers, service users, academics, researchers and students.
Unbeknown to me, Huddersfield University is home to the Spirituality Special Interest Group (SSIG) and is actively involved in research on spirituality in healthcare. The conference was also the setting for the launch of a newly published book Spiritually Competent Practice in Health Care written by members of the SSIG.
For this article I have attempted to briefly introduce and summarise each of the speakers in the order they spoke and in so doing develop the main themes of the conference as they developed on the day. I conclude with some personal reflections.
Before proceeding however, I think it is important to name ‘the elephant in the room’ which caused a good deal of comment and some controversy throughout the day namely, the proposition that spirituality is not the same as religion. As the conference progressed one could almost sense a growing desperation for a definition of spirituality to resolve any uncertainty. One possible definition was suggested towards the end of the day, by which time it had become apparent that spirituality was being regarded more as a lived experience than an intellectual concept.
The opening session was from Wilf McSherry,