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Spirituality: Perspectives from Psychology

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Spirituality across Disciplines: Research and Practice:

Abstract

The engagement of modern psychology with spirituality has spanned more than a century, following seminal inquiries by William James, Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. Today, there is no single understanding of spirituality within psychology. Nevertheless, psychological and psychologically-informed studies of spirituality have consistently revealed important aspects of this area of human functioning including the identification of a range of approaches and orientations to spirituality; the importance of various beliefs, attitudes and cognitive styles associated with spirituality; the relationship and contributions of personality and emotion to spirituality; and the relevance of spiritual attachments to human development and well-being. In the practice of psychotherapy, spirituality’s inclusion has some empirical support, although professional development in spiritually-informed practice is relatively sparse. The challenge for future research is to consider whether psychological approaches may illuminate additional aspects of spirituality – especially those (such as the numinous and mysterious) that are not easily constrained within a psychological paradigm. For this illumination to occur, psychologists must be open to apparently anomalous and inexplicable components of spirituality, while maintaining a psychological perspective that facilitates sound theoretical and empirical examinations of new arenas of spirituality.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Excelsia College, U.W.S. Psychology (Aus), 69-71 Waterloo Road, Macquarie Park, Australia, 2113

    Maureen Miner

  2. Excelsia College, 69-71 Waterloo Road, Macquarie Park, Australia, 2113

    Martin Dowson

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  1. Maureen Miner
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  2. Martin Dowson
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Correspondence to Maureen Miner .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Federation University, Ballarat, Australia

    Marian de Souza

  2. Faculty of Education, Monash University, Frankston, Victoria, Australia

    Jane Bone

  3. School of Education & Lifelong Lear, University of East Anglia, Norwich, United Kingdom

    Jacqueline Watson

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Miner, M., Dowson, M. (2016). Spirituality: Perspectives from Psychology. In: de Souza, M., Bone, J., Watson, J. (eds) Spirituality across Disciplines: Research and Practice:. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31380-1_13

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31380-1_13

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

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