Mary is a theologian, a priest, an educator and a care practitioner.  Her academic background and work experience have been in the fields of education, theology, spiritual counselling and educational publishing. As an ordained priest she creates and presides at personalised funerals and memorial services.

She has worked as a home-based caregiver in the UK and understands some of the stresses and challenges in the caring continuum. More recently, she trained with Felicity Warner’s School of Soul Midwifery in the UK, which directed her line of enquiry and engagement in the spiritual support of people at the end of life.

Her current focus is to provide training courses and workshops as well as mentoring Soul Carers who specialise in the spiritual care of people at the end of life.

For further information please contact the Soul Carer Network Co-ordinator 

 

Short Review of Mary Ryan’s Course on Soul Care

The purpose of this course is to learn about caring for the dying from a spiritual perspective within the principles of the palliative care model. This means that although the focus is on giving spiritual care and compassion, one also learns about practical, ethical and psychological dimensions of the dying process. 

The course is designed and run by Dr. Mary Ryan. It is run online, comprising 5 sessions of 90 minutes each. Mary is an expert facilitator, who moves between her own input, group discussion, group sharing and silent reflection. After each session Mary shares her slides complemented by a set of excellent readings, video links and other resources related to that week’s topic. These resources have been carefully selected and one comes away with a very valuable ‘library’ on the theme. That said, it is certainly advisable to keep up with the preparatory readings and exercises as the course proceeds. 

I found this course profoundly valuable and also deeply challenging at a personal level. Key insights that I gained from the course include:

• Understanding dying as a physical, psychological, emotional and spiritual process.
• Dying often involves a need for psychic and spiritual work and resolution –with potential for transformation – that only the dying person can do in their own way. This can mean enduring suffering, pain and fear on the journey. 
• The key role for the soul carer is to simply be a presence to this process. I learnt about the importance of listening and holding and refraining from giving help, advice or my own stories. 

I highly recommend this course for both personal growth as well as preparation for taking up the role of soul carer – formally or informally.

 

Kathy Luckett
March 2025