Psychology’s Potential for Reconciliation with Spiritual and Religious Traditions

Abstract

In exploring psychology’s relationship with spirituality and religion, I argue that natural-science psychologists have tended to repress their discipline’s spiritual and religious heritage. History of psychology textbooks sharply distinguish “objective” psychology from “subjective” philosophy, theology, religion, and spirituality, while glossing over historical anomalies such as natural-science psychologists’ ambivalent stance regarding psychoanalysis. Psychologists’ scientism (“worship” of the experimental model, technology, scientific progress, and materialist conceptions of the soul) militates against resolving persistent, disciplinary tensions between objectivity and subjectivity. Rather than emulating psychology, social workers should turn to their own traditions and develop a human-science orientation for their profession. When theorizing, they could connect empowerment and the ecological metaphor with these concepts’ spiritual base. When researching, social workers could foster more active roles for their participants and could write their research articles in more personalized, inter-subjective, and contextualized ways. When educating, they could incorporate critical education in process and content.