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Psychology as Religion

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Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion
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In a useful survey of the terrain between religion and psychology, William Parsons and Diane Jonte-Pace (2001) note that the multiple and diverse approaches now utilized within this area have replaced its identity as a single field, traditionally known as the psychology “of” religion, with the more inclusive “religion and psychological studies,” within which reside the subsets of “psychology of religion,” and “psychology in dialogue with religion.” What distinguishes the dialogical approach is that it moves beyond using psychology as a method of analysis to interpret religious phenomena to employ psychology as a tool to extend, through conversation, the aims of religion.

An additional subset appearing within, although arguably threatening to undermine, the dialogical enterprise is an approach that seeks less to relate psychology to religion than to offer psychology asa religion. Despite eliciting controversy for blurring the boundaries between the two fields, psychology as religion...

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Correspondence to Ann Gleig .

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Gleig, A. (2020). Psychology as Religion. In: Leeming, D.A. (eds) Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24348-7_771

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