Activating the Healing Response

T.R.U.S.T

Literature across health care disciplines has come to acknowledge spiritual care as integral to holistic health promotion. However, caregivers often continue to be reluctant to explore the spiritual dimension of health with their clients. In order to help caregivers feel more prepared to offer spiritual care, the author has drawn upon the interdisciplinary literature to develop the T.R.U.S.T. Model for Inclusive Spiritual Care. This article introduces the T.R.U.S.T. Model and its foundational concept of ‘inclusive spiritual care’: relevant, non-intrusive care which tends to the spiritual dimension of health by addressing universal spiritual needs, honoring unique spiritual worldviews, and helping individuals to explore and mobilize factors that can help them gain/re-gain a sense of trust in order to promote optimum healing. The article also describes the T.R.U.S.T. Model’s origins, underlying assumptions, and its non-prescriptive outline for exploring five topics: ‘Traditions’, ‘Reconciliation’, ‘Understandings’, ‘Searching’, and ‘Teachers’. Guidelines are included for using T.R.U.S.T. to enhance holistic health care, with an emphasis on its use in holistic nursing practice.