Critical response to “grief and spirituality: main issues and implications for generalist social work and its framework guideline”

Abstract

This letter critically responds to Kaňák’s article on grief and spirituality in generalist social work. While the article offers a useful bibliometric map and a practice-oriented framework, it risks overextending conclusions from a narrow Web of Science corpus and underdeveloping power, culture, aging, and ethics. I argue that future work should integrate intersectional, gerontological, and practice-based evidence, clarify referral boundaries, and test the proposed guidelines empirically so spiritually sensitive bereavement care can avoid both secular neglect and uncritical spiritualization in diverse social work settings worldwide.