SPIRITUALITY AS A SUPPORT FOR BEREAVED FAMILIES AND ITS INTERFACES WITH HUMANIZED CARE AND HEALTH PROMOTION

Abstract

This article analyzes the role of spirituality as support, comfort, and health promotion for bereaved families, with an emphasis on humanized care, Spiritist itineraries of consolation, and the symbolic function of psychographed letters. It is a bibliographical study, with a qualitative approach, exploratory and descriptive in nature, developed through an integrative literature review. The methodological path was structured from the definition of the guiding question, the delimitation of the thematic scope, the selection of databases and information sources, the establishment of inclusion and exclusion criteria, the screening and analytical reading of the material, and the subsequent interpretative organization of the corpus into thematic axes. The review allowed for a discussion of grief as a complex and multidimensional experience, traversed by emotional, social, cultural, and spiritual factors, as well as an understanding of spirituality as an important resource for coping with and reinterpreting loss. In the case of Spiritism, practices of support that offer belonging, hope, and symbolic elaboration of absence are evident. The article's conclusion emphasizes how spirituality, when recognized ethically, respectfully, and non-reductionistically, broadens the understanding of holistic care and contributes to a more nuanced debate on mental health, health promotion, and humanized care for bereaved families.