Despites nursing holistic trends for caring, in psychiatric wards of general hospitals the spiritual dimension remains controversy. Evidence shows spirituality rule in recovering and also alerts about complications associated to mental disorders and spirituality.

To describe spirituality meanings attributed by a psychiatric nursing team and discuss how they apply them on professional cares.

Clinical-qualitative design is a particularization of generic qualitative strategies brought from humanities to approach symbolic research questions in clinical settings. A semi-directed interview with open-ended question, in-depth, was carried out with a team of 22 nursing professionals in the psychiatric ward of a general hospital in Southeast Brazil. Data analysis was driven under the Ricoeur understanding of Freudian symbolic meaning, which affirm that a statement revels multiple meanings overwritten.

Spirituality is developed from several sources of restlessness and living together. The function of spirituality is to help fulfill social roles, keep internal balance and to maintain sacred practice attitudes towards life that brings symbolic salvation: help or redemption to hard life times. Nature of mental illness remains as spiritual stigma and a suspicion contradictorily to spiritual approach caring to patients in inpatients services, which is described, as inappropriate or confusable.

Even spirituality meanings are covered by symbolism, which expresses human attitudes to help in life crises they are surrounded by contradictions that situate this dimension in the limit of reason, which approximates carriers and patients causing weirdness. Nursing staff still needs training to deliver holistic care, and spiritual counseling to gain clarity in this issue.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.