Place Of Spirituality Research Articles

Report on the Second International Conference of the British Association for the Study of Spirituality

Entitled ‘Spirituality in a Fragmented World’, this year’s conference set out to build on the foundations and insights of the first BASS conference, held in 2010 at Cumberland Lodge, Windsor Great Park, London. The theme of the first conference was ‘Spirituality in a Changing World’. It is one of the core tenets of BASS that spirituality is a vehicle for cohesion, unity and harmony where there is division, alienation and fragmentation. Like the first conference, this year’s was also ambitious in its scope. Its aim was to facilitate a genuine encounter between people starting from very different points and with different objectives, in pursuit of furthering our understandings and stimulating new directions in the study of contemporary spirituality. One of the two logos for the conference was a waterfall. This is a powerful metaphor since water is both life-giving and life-destroying; it is thus also a metaphor for human behaviour and experience, many aspects of which were examined and articulated in the five themes chosen for the conference: spirituality in health, politics, ecology, religion, and humanity and social justice. Each of the keynote speakers is well-known and respected in their field and helped us to study further the place and impact of spirituality in those fields. The conference committee was only too well aware that spirituality impinges on every area of human living and experience and so it was not easy to choose just five areas for particular study during the conference.

Observing the Jewish Sabbath: A Meaningful Restorative Ritual for Modern Times

The religious practices and traditions that mark the Jewish Sabbath set it apart as a day different from everyday occupations and routines. Sabbath values focus on spirituality, respite, relationships and community, promoting a more balanced lifestyle. Sabbath keeping continues to have relevance in modern times as it is an oasis or counterbalance to the harried pace of modern life, with its exposure to incessant stimuli, technological innovations and our reliance on electronic devices. Understanding the form, function and meaning of Sabbath keeping may help occupational scientists have a better understanding of the place of religion and spirituality in occupational choice, cultural identity, and well-being.

Sustainability and Spirituality: a Transdisciplinary Perspective

This paper addresses some issues that describe the experience of a transdisciplinary process and the place of spirituality within the aim of sustainability at the Universidad Veracruzana in Mexico. Spirituality as a dimension of human beings and natural systems, sustainability through the consciousness of general ecology and transdisciplinary as a transformative experience that allows the inclusion of spiritual dimension in our aim for creating sustainable futures. Our dialogue with the popular traditions and cosmology of ancient Mesoamerican Philosophy is a core in the relationship between spirituality and transdisciplinary.

Living Critically and ‘Living Faithfully’ in a Global Age: Justice, Emancipation and the Political Theology of International Relations

This article asks is there a place for religion and spirituality in a critical theory of international relations (IR)? The usual answer is ‘no’ because of critical theory’s generally negative assessment of religion in domestic and international politics. However, while many of these criticisms can be acknowledged, a critical theory of IR still has to grapple with the more complex understanding of religion that already exists in critical theory, and the global resurgence of religion how Eurocentric its concept of religion actually is and how rooted it is in the European experience of modernisation. For the people of the global South — which comprises most of the people in the world — the struggle to ‘live faithfully’ amid the problems of world poverty, climate change, conflict and development can not be separated from their struggle for justice and emancipation. Therefore, a greater dialogue between critical theory and theology is necessary if critical theory is to more fully and creatively contribute to our understanding of some of the most important global issues in the study of IR in the 21st century.

Exploring Religion and Spirituality in Clinical Practice

This article is a report on a study designed with experienced clinicians to explore the question of spirituality, religion and practice. Using eight focus groups from around the United States, the data provided support for the importance of theoretically grounded practitioners who have integrated spiritual and religious practices into their personal and professional lives. The participants' discussions provide strong support for exploring spirituality and religious beliefs in the context of the ways clients make meaning of life circumstances. An interesting finding is the importance of paying attention to the place of spirituality and religion in clinical practice.

Integrating a spirited dimension into health and social care

Peter Gilbert argues that the place of individual spirituality and religious faith is increasingly being recognised by the NHS and other organisations

Relationships between health and culture in Polynesia – A review

This review of journal articles and book chapters discusses the health beliefs characteristic of Polynesia and reveals several themes. These are: commonality in health conceptualisations across the cultures of the region which differ from the conceptualisations of biomedicine; the role of the relational self, traditional living and communalism in understanding health; the place of spirituality and religion in health and illness causation; and pluralism and pragmatism in health-seeking behaviour. Suggestions are made as to how awareness of key ideas might contribute to effective planning of health promotion and intervention activities.

Faith and Fortune in the Post-Colonial Classroom

The place of spirituality, religion, faith and cynicism in management education has received increasing attention in the past decade. From the point of view of teaching focused on critical engagement with practice, they are sometimes viewed as obstacles to practice. In this article we use resources from post-colonial thought and global critical race theory to suggest the opposite—that faith and cynicism can be understood as forms of critique issuing from the student perspective and that we might learn from these critiques as a way to reconfigure persistent dilemmas in the critique of the Enlightenment that trouble critical management approaches. We discuss a case study of the resistance to gigantic dam projects in India to illustrate both the possibilities of these critiques through what we call `faith' and `fortune', and the extent of the struggle that still remains to make such critiques effective. We then reconsider the dialectic of what Denise Ferreira da Silva calls `affectability and self-determination' and the potential of liberation theology to offer a way to develop a `preferential option' for the affectable subject. Drawing on the work of political philosopher and historian Jacques Rancière we conclude on a note of optimism about the creative subjectification of affectability.

Workshop Report

Virtue ethics challenges standard ethical paradigms about what constitutes social work as a morally right and good enterprise, locating the source of all morality in a person's character. It posits that a virtuous (caring, compassionate, just and generous), social worker is one whose authenticity derives from what it is to be a true human being exercising such virtues. What it is to be a true human being is for many connected essentially with spirituality, faith and religion. The idea of characteristic virtue as a human defining feature is to be found in most religions and faiths. Virtue ethics locates this authenticity through a primarily secular philosophical perspective. Both perspectives speak to what it is to be a good social worker but are they reconcilable? Does the secular challenge of virtue ethics to standard social work ethical paradigms also challenge the place of spirituality, faith and religion in social work education? This report presents a conversation between two social workers about these issues, one a committed secular virtue ethicist and one personally committed to the importance of spirituality, faith and religion in social work education. The audience were invited to participate in asking questions as the conversation explored the complexities.

Towards understand spirituality in Bioethics

The study aims to gather elements to point out the place of spirituality in Bioethics. It explains the different concepts ofspirit, through the history of thought, and verifies how the term opens to a plurality of conceptualizations. But such plurality does notundo the incisiveness of its questions, for these always arrive at the present time, deserving a place in the agenda of thinkers. The studyalso shows some main concepts of spirituality that derive from conceptions of spirit. It discusses the reason for a place for spiritualityin Bioethics; and, affirming that it is not any spirituality that is adequate to Bioethics, seeks to delineate characteristics that make itadequate.

Spirituality and religion in recovery: Some current issues.

This paper addresses current perspectives on the roles of spirituality and religion in recovery from serious mental health problems. Drawing on a variety of discussion groups and consultations in addition to the published literature, consumer perceptions as well as those of mental health and religious professionals are reviewed. Consumers note both potentially supportive and burdensome roles of religion and spirituality in recovery. Professionals report both hope for, and discomfort with, these domains in the context of mental health services. From each perspective emerge key recommendations regarding the appropriate place of spirituality and religion in psychiatric rehabilitation and related supports.

Clapsticks and Karaoke: The Melting Pot of Indigenous Identity

In recent decades, a mixed-style dance festival has been held at camping grounds near the town of Laura on Cape York Peninsula, including contemporary forms of music and dance. The Laura Festival has its roots in the funding of Aboriginal dance festivals in the 1970s across northern Australia with the aim of fostering the sharing, recovery and maintenance of Aboriginal traditional dance forms. The range of cultural forms at the Festival clearly reflects a broad expression of Indigenous identity, from the classic traditional styles to creative forms that explore symbols and motifs, to modern cultural forms that adapt western forms with an Indigenous style. Questions the authors reflected on at the Festival were: “Where is God in the Laura Festival?” and “What does the Festival say about Aboriginal spirituality in general and Aboriginal Christian spirituality in particular?” In answer to these questions we felt that the Creator was very much present in the vitality and creativity of the Festival and in the shaping of new expressions of Indigenous identity in the modern world. Further, the Festival affirmed that there is a foundational place for Aboriginal spirituality in the formation of Aboriginal Christian identity and spiritualities through a combination of traditional spiritual foundations linking people to creation, culture and to the Creator known through Christ, and a creative shaping of contemporary expressions of belief and practice.

Taking Religious Experience Seriously

Taking Religious Experience Seriously James Morley (bio) Keywords religion, spirituality, psychopathology, phenomenology Late nineteenth-century psychiatry distanced itself from religion (and spirituality) for good reasons. Psychiatry needed to assert itself as a physical science that was in no way related to the rudely unscientific and irrational "faith healing" emblematic of pre-modern procedures for treating mental illness. It strove for the authoritative status enjoyed by the successful physical sciences and their offspring, modern physical medicine. Yet, historians of psychiatry have pointed out that this aloofness from religion and spirituality has never been entirely successful. One could make the case that talking cure therapies have employed a "mixed narrative" that, while using the theoretical nomenclature of natural science, have in clinical practice been something not entirely different from the faith healing procedures that preceded contemporary naturalistic medicine. In their seminal study "Persuasion and Healing," Jerome and Julia Frank (1961/1993) argued that all talking cure therapies involve a common constellation of constituents: (1) a demoralized person with (2) demoralizing assumptions of the world and (3) a healer. Both healer and demoralized person must believe in the power of this common therapeutic frame of reference if healing is to succeed. Most crucially, the demoralized persons must believe in their healer's competence within a shared therapeutic paradigm if they are to be persuaded to change their demoralizing assumptions about the world. This placebo-like belief in the healing powers of the therapist and the shared therapeutic paradigm is essentially a rhetorical process that, despite such technical terminology as "placebo," "transference," or "therapeutic relationship" has, in practice, shared these religiomagical qualities of faith healing. To put this another way, "personal reality" is itself a matter of belief and faith. The quality of our faith in the reality of the world is a personal meaning-making process that will never be fully satisfied with the results of wet laboratory neuroscience, breakthroughs in physics, or the solving of mathematical problems. In contrast with the purely naturalized branches of science and medicine, psychotherapy specializes in this domain of the reality-positing dimension of the human condition. Thus, as psychotherapists, we may be deluding ourselves if we think we can circumvent the very sticky issue of the place of religion and spirituality in clinical diagnosis and treatment. Psychiatry ignores the spiritual at its own peril. It is for this reason that I warmly welcome this article as the beginning of a very important dialogue for which Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology is the most appropriate forum. Agneta Schreurs' article reflects a growing consensus within the clinical world to acknowledge spirituality within the physical and mental healing process, but in a manner that distinguishes "spirituality" from religious institutional dogma. Here, [End Page 201] "spirituality" refers of "an individual's ideals, attitudes, thoughts, feelings and prayers directed toward the Divine" or, as I would rephrase it, one's "direct experience" of the sacred or numinous. This focus on experience is, in fact, in consonance with the projects of such scholars as William James (1902/1994), Rudolf Otto (1958), Mircea Eliade (1959, 1971), and most recently Richard Kearney (2001), who have made groundbreaking efforts to forge a "phenomenology of religious experience" independent of religious ideology and doctrine. Unfortunately, these remarkable researchers have had much more impact on theology than psychiatry or philosophy. But the question must yet be asked: Can we really distinguish our personal direct experience of the sacred from the pervasive cultural institutions and religious doctrines that engulf us? Is there a purely "spiritual" standpoint? This question of a purely spiritual perspective parallels the problem of philosophical phenomenology when it perpetually asks itself if a purely presuppositionless experience is possible. Although most contemporary existential phenomenologists do not believe a purely detached standpoint is possible, there is consensus that a more humble "impure" self-reflective form or interrogation of experience is very much possible. So, to use a hackneyed cliché, "the baby need not be thrown out with the bathwater." It is a noble and necessary effort to distinguish "religious experience" from the mindless violence and suffering that is almost always the inevitable consequence of religious dogma. But how we can distinguish it from "the culture of religion" is a...

Profile: a place for spirituality in healthcare: Dennis O'Hara's reflections on complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) in Canada

Spirituality and Health InternationalVolume 6, Issue 4 p. 218-226 Original Article Profile: a place for spirituality in healthcare: Dennis O'Hara's reflections on complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) in Canada John Crellin, John CrellinSearch for more papers by this author John Crellin, John CrellinSearch for more papers by this author First published: 30 March 2006 https://doi.org/10.1002/shi.26AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Volume6, Issue4December 2005Pages 218-226 RelatedInformation

Self-Reflexivity: A Place for Religion and Spirituality in Public Administration

This article describes an empirical study of a select set of mid-level managers in the federal government. The study examined the participant's capacity to engage in the kind of self-reflexivity that Michael Harmon calls for in his 1995 book Responsibility as Paradox: A Critique of Rational Discourse on Government. Specifically, it focuses on the reflections of two participants, both of whom asserted a direct relationship between their religious beliefs and their work as public administrators. Three implications for the discipline and practice of public administration are developed.

Spirituality, medicine, and the possibility of wisdom

Spirituality, medicine, and the possibility of wisdom

Spirituality as experienced by occupational therapists in practice.

Despite considerable literature describing the potential place of spirituality in occupational therapy, surveys repeatedly demonstrate that therapists are uncomfortable with this concept in practice. To gain a better understanding of how spirituality might inform practice, we interviewed eight occupational therapists who stated that they considered spirituality while working with patients. Participants defined spirituality as one's beliefs about the world and one's place in it and how one lives out these beliefs, through reflection and conscious actions. Four themes of consideration of spirituality in practice emerged. In the first, addressing religious concerns, therapists dealt with patients' religious questions and issues. In the second, addressing suffering, therapists assisted patients to deal with their feelings related to loss and pain, attempted to relieve patients' distress and helped patients move towards increased functioning. In the third, encouraging the self, therapists worked to assist patients to acknowledge their own worth and to use their unique gifts and interests. In the fourth, growing as a person, therapists themselves were transformed as a result of the therapeutic encounter. This study represents an early attempt to determine what occupational therapists who consider spirituality actually do in practice. Future research should go deeper into the experience of such therapists, to gain a richer understanding of the phenomenon.

Reconsidering spirituality and medicine.

Increasing awareness of possible links between religion and health has led to greater attention to spirituality and medicine in medical education; both trends have culminated in vigorous debate about the place of spirituality and related values in medical care. The author argues that due to basic ambiguities of the term "spirituality" as well as prevailing biases of both patients and practitioners, this debate risks valorizing theistic religious views, a trend that would be to the detriment of physicians, residents, and students who happen to be non-believers or adherents of minority faiths. It is maintained that philosophical value theory, a broad inquiry into value and meaning that is carefully neutral as regards religious matters, provides the greatest possible protection of both secular and non-secular world views. A notion of "separation of church and medicine," similar in some ways to the well-known political model, is proposed. Because so many issues of meaning and value may be relevant to health, vigilance is required to properly delineate the purview of medicine. The author concludes by proposing that a medicine that neither exalts nor demeans religious belief but rather situates the latter among the countless values persons may hold should be the goal.

Magic happens: Revisiting the spirituality and social work debate

The social work profession is currently undergoing a resurgence of interest regarding the issue of spirituality in social work. This article attempts to summarise and explore the debate so far and to discuss the implications of this in a practice context. Current issues including definitions of spirituality and the key concerns in the areas of both practice and education are addressed. The article concludes with an overview of a model of spiritually sensitive social work practice, and poses options for further professional reflection on the place of spirituality in social work practice.

Magic happens: revisiting the spirituality and social work debate

Abstract The social work profession is currently undergoing a resurgence of interest regarding the issue of spirituality in social work. This article attempts to summarise and explore the debate so far and to discuss the implications of this in a practice context. Current issues including definitions of spirituality and the key concerns in the areas of both practice and education are addressed. The article concludes with an overview of a model of spiritually sensitive social work practice, and poses options for further professional reflection on the place of spirituality in social work practice.