Chaplains and Imagination at Great Ormond Street Hospital

Sofia Pauca is a graduating senior at Princeton University. She invites feedback and comments at smpauca@gmail.com.

The chapel at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children is a space both built for and entirely dedicated to children. Next to the chapel sits the chaplaincy offices, which house chaplains who are dedicated to ministering to children in the midst of suffering. Surrounding the chaplaincy area, in other adjacent buildings, are wards filled with hospital beds dotted with imaginative decorations.

When I visited Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) as a junior at Princeton University, I was able to interview two pediatric chaplains and also observed the chapel space as well as other areas in the hospital. I had chosen to write about this topic for my Junior Paper for the Religion Department, in part because of my extensive experiences in pediatric hospitals with my younger brother, which has motivated me to pursue a career in medicine. What I learned from my time at GOSH was the immense effect that chaplaincy and the physical spaces of hospitals can have on the experiences of hospitalized children and their families, and this is something that I will continue to carry with me into my future career.

During our interviews, the chaplains emphasized to me over and over the impact that discussing emotions, often in creative and imaginative ways, could have on children and families’ experiences with illness. The descriptions of their interactions made clear, however, that the way in which the chaplains approach the interactions in the first place was what provides the space for individuals to express themselves. Their presence creates a physical space between themselves and the individual, a space for communication with someone else. However, by not imbuing that space with meaning themselves, the chaplains allow it to remain open for the families and children to fill with their own expressions. The chapel, too, through its constant presence, offered a physical space in which communication can take place with someone and conceptual spaces can be imagined somewhere beyond. Here, families and children are able to express their emotions by writing on a prayer tree, kneeling in child-sized pews, or sometimes by simply standing in the room itself. The chapel is full of material objects, and it is precisely these that offer windows into other worlds, both those associated with a religious tradition and those that suggest imaginative realms.

Their presence creates a physical space between themselves and the individual, a space for communication with someone else.

These imagined realms are often in quite noticeable display in many areas around the hospital that are decorated with scenes from classic children’s stories. Many of these areas contain interactive elements which encourage children to engage directly with these realms and imagine themselves in another place. In fact, GOSH itself is actually associated with a particular imaginative realm – that of Peter Pan. The author of the famous children’s book donated the copyright to the hospital, and since then there have been many depictions of this connection both within and outside of the hospital walls. In my paper, I suggest that imagination endows individuals with the opportunity to express complex and changing emotions through the framework of a narrative. For children, perhaps most of all, these emotions are anything but static, and imagining stories can be a creative way of subtly expressing their emotional journeys to others. These journeys can sometimes extend past the metaphorical doorway and into the liminal space of children’s and families’ imaginings about death and the afterlife.

In writing my paper, I realized that recognizing the impact that interactions with chaplains and physical spaces in pediatric hospitals can have on families and children is essential in order to fully consider the multidimensionality of family experience. When it comes to caring for families and children emotionally and spiritually, the space that chaplains provide through their interactions is one that allows for deep and complex expression. Physical spaces in hospitals such as chapels or imaginative play areas likewise allow individuals the room to engage with difficult emotions and ultimately create meaning for themselves. These spaces constitute an important part of the treatment the hospital provides, and should not be underestimated.

One chaplain told me that when families ask her, “Why me?” she replies with “I don’t know. I’m not here to answer your question.”

The chaplains at Great Ormond Street Hospital seem to spend most of their time simply listening. Their presence, however, appears to raise questions from families. One chaplain told me that when families ask her, “Why me?” she replies with “I don’t know. I’m not here to answer your question.” Families seem to expect some sort of religious meaning or answers from their interactions with chaplains, however families are ultimately the ones who create meaning for themselves. The chapel, with all its ornate religious imagery, might also give the impression that it would provide specific answers to questions about illness, but instead it is quite possibly the quietest place in the hospital, and one can walk in and out of it without hearing any audible doctrine. However, it may be the expectation of meaning that the physical space connotes that leads families to create meaning themselves and express their emotions and spirituality. In this way, the presence of the chaplains and chapel, as figures and spaces associated with religious tradition, may perhaps encourage families to “find meaning” more so than if they were not associated with religion. Similar to the “power of imagination,” religion also has the power to create and cultivate spaces for hospitalized families that encourage the exploration of their own emotions, spirituality, and meanings. Along with imagination, chaplains and chapels in hospitals should be recognized by medical professionals and religious scholars as strong sources of support to families experiencing illness.

The full paper is linked here, if you are interested in reading more and viewing pictures of the chapel at GOSH. I learned a great deal in the process of researching and writing this paper, and I also decided to extend this work into my senior thesis. In this year-long project, I was able to interview families of children previously hospitalized in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit of a different hospital, as well as physicians, nurses, and chaplains. Much of the conversations centered around perspectives on God’s will and praying for a miracle, which are quite difficult but very important topics to many families.