Sacred Moments Research Articles

A Qualitative Exploration of Sacred Moments in Radiation Oncology

PURPOSEWhile there are many benefits to radiation oncology services, there can be emotional burdens in the care of patients with advanced cancer. Burnout is a prevalent problem in oncology. Existing literature suggests re-focusing attention on providers’ sense of purpose to protect against burnout. “Sacred moments” are moments of deep interconnection between people with accompanying spiritual emotions such as awe, joy, and gratitude. These moments naturally occur in healthcare settings, offering potential benefits to both patient and provider. Little is known about the prevalence and impact of sacred moments among healthcare workers in a radiation oncology setting. METHODS AND MATERIALSWe conducted an exploratory qualitative study of 13 semi-structured interviews among physicians, registered nurses, and advanced practice providers of a radiation oncology consult service at a large National Cancer Institute-designated cancer center between March and April 2023. Interviews were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed to identify key themes. Data were systematically coded and analyzed in NVivo software, and organized into a codebook organized by domains and themes. RESULTSOf the 13 healthcare workers interviewed, 12 people reported experiencing at least one sacred moment during their clinical careers. None of the interviewees were initially familiar with the term; however, all understood the concept once explained. Interview findings were organized into four domains: (1) Common Elements, (2) Impact, (3) Barriers, and (4) Provider Reactions. Common elements included a moment of deep interconnection between provider and patient, often involving end-of-life patients. The impact of these moments was most commonly described as an increased sense of purpose in their role. Lack of time with patients was the most common barrier. CONCLUSIONSSacred moments are commonly experienced by healthcare workers in a radiation oncology consult service. They helped to humanize the patient, buffer against provider burnout, and increase a sense of purpose and job satisfaction.

Exploring Sacred Moments in Hospitalized Patients: An Exploratory Qualitative Study

Background“Sacred moments” are brief periods of time in which people experience a deep interconnectedness that may possess spiritual qualities and emotions. This concept has been shown to have a positive impact on individuals’ overall well-being and stress in mental health settings. The concept of sacred moments has not been studied in acute care hospital settings.ObjectiveTo better understand the occurrence of sacred moments among hospitalized patients and their healthcare workers.DesignAn exploratory qualitative study that included in-depth interviews with patients and healthcare workers at two academic medical centers in the Midwestern United States.ParticipantsHospital healthcare workers (e.g., physicians, nurses, ancillary staff) and discharged patients with a recent hospital stay.ApproachSemi-structured telephone interviews were conducted with 30 participants between August 2020 and April 2021. Interviews were recorded and transcribed before conducting thematic analysis.Key ResultsBoth healthcare workers and patients reported having experienced at least one sacred moment. Interview findings were organized into three main domains including (1) several common elements described by participants as marking these moments; (2) benefits experienced by both patients and healthcare workers; and (3) suggestions for fostering sacred moments within the hospital setting.ConclusionsAmong our participants, sacred moments were extremely common with the vast majority reporting to have experienced at least one in their lifetime. These moments were described as profound and important and shared many common elements. Our findings can be used to help recognize, understand, and promote sacred moments between hospitalized patients and healthcare workers.

“Savoring” the Joy: Reducing Principal Burnout and Improving Well-Being through Positive Psychology Interventions

Principals are pivotal for creating schools that meet the needs of all students. However, the exodus of principals has been on the rise especially in the last two years as the pandemic accelerated turnover rates. Principals are experiencing greater levels of workload, stress, and burnout often without the tools for maintaining mental health. While many strategies for self-care are widely discussed—consistent exercise routine, eating healthy, and adequate sleep—many are not easily adaptable for principals who often experience time constraints and inconsistent schedules. The field of positive psychology has shown that interventions focused on human strengths and enhancing positive emotions can significantly boost well-being. The most promising aspect of positive psychology interventions (PPIs) is the ease with which these strategies can be integrated into the busy demands of the principalship. This article provides evidence for PPIs as potential strategies to emotionally and mentally support principals from individual and organizational approaches. Specifically, this article describes several PPI recommendations for principals to practice and begin building upon positive experiences in their daily lives such as savoring and cultivating sacred moments. The article also provides recommendations for school districts to consider such as cognitive-behavioral, solution-focused coaching; positive principal supervisor interventions; and systematic spaces to address principals’ complaints. While these recommendations are not comprehensive, we believe they serve as a starting point for principals to move beyond surviving and toward thriving in their careers.

The experience of sacred moments and mental health benefits over time.

The experience of sacred moments and mental health benefits over time.

‘The Music was Speaking to Me’: Using narrative inquiry to describe sacred moments with music

Sacred moments, or sanctified periods of time, may result in psychological benefits for those who experience them, and music may have the potential to facilitate or enhance these sacred moments. Using qualitative content analysis, the present study examined narratives from US adults (N = 209) who had experienced important moments while listening, playing, composing, or otherwise interacting with music and who perceived this moment to be sacred to some degree. Our research questions focused on the types of music associated with sacred moments, the features of these sacred moments, and the contexts of these sacred moments with music to determine the nature of these moments experienced by the general public. There was a diversity of music genres associated with sacred moments, the largest group described engaging with rock music, and most people were familiar with the musical piece. Most participants recounted that they were listening to recordings rather than live music or performing themselves. The largest group of participants described that they were at their home or that of a loved one, many with friends or family and others alone. Many participants described that they were forming or maintaining relationships during these moments, feeling joy, and/or thinking about their interconnectedness with others. Over half of participants described that the moment gave them a new perspective or purpose. The implications of these findings for the study of sacred moments and therapeutic practice incorporating spirituality are discussed.

A qualitative analysis of sacred moments in religiously integrated group therapy

ABSTRACT The aim of this study was to qualitatively explore sacred moments in religiously integrated group therapy for Danish Pentecostals who were experiencing a personal crisis (n = 18). This was a follow-up study based on data from 2009 and 2018. An interpretative phenomenological analytical approach was used to generate and analyze the data material. Three themes emerged: 1) Relationship with God, 2) Relationship with therapist, and 3) Relationship with group members. The participants’ experiences of sacred moments in these relationships were primarily facilitated by a strong therapeutic alliance, trust in the therapist, and therapeutic exercises. The study indicates that trust may be a prerequisite to clients’ experience of spiritual qualities in therapy. The interrelationships in group settings can facilitate sacred moments if led by a spiritually legitimated and trustful therapist. Our findings emphasise the value of working therapeutically with sacred relational aspects in psychotherapy in highly secularised countries as Denmark.

Sacred moments in Guided Imagery and Music

This theoretical article reviews a range of current views on spiritual experiences in Guided Imagery and Music (GIM) and includes my personal assessment of the theme with a range of case vignettes illustrating the concept of ‘sacred moments’. Sacred moments occurring in psychotherapy have been described as specific life-changing moments of trust and boundlessness that can be remembered years after, and that positively influence health and the effectiveness of therapy. Deep listening to music in music therapy seems to provide an opportunity to create and embrace spirituality. This article explores the phenomenology of sacred moments as they appear in GIM seen in the light of case examples: how does the client experience a sacred moment, how can it be understood and integrated, and what impact does it have in the life of the client? It is also discussed whether practices of Music and Imagery can be applied in education and pedagogics.

The transformative power of the sacred: Social, personality, and religious/spiritual antecedents and consequents of sacred moments during a religious/spiritual struggle.

The transformative power of the sacred: Social, personality, and religious/spiritual antecedents and consequents of sacred moments during a religious/spiritual struggle.

Revealing the invisible: The virus is looking at you

At the core of the various messages that have been sent out about the Coronavirus is how to deal with an invisible threat. Revealing the invisible is however an ancient issue, one that goes back thousands of years and reoccurs throughout human history. This article is an exploration of the complex interrelationship between several long-standing visual tropes that over historical time have emerged from various cultures in response to a need to communicate invisible forces. Beginning with reflections on the poster for the International Hygiene Exhibition of 1911 held in Dresden, linking in images of an Egyptian sun god, via extramission theory and thoughts about the first drawings done through a handheld, lens-focused microscope by Robert Hooke, a series of links and interconnections are made that explore how the invisible has been represented and how the invisible virus can be read as a type of ‘dark star’ or anti-sun. Christian traditions of the use of unnatural colour to signify both invisible power and demonic possession and the way the Coronavirus has itself been depicted are compared to historical visual tropes such as the aureola and the mandorla as used in the Greek Orthodox Church to depict sacred moments that transcend time and space. From Buddhist and Christian uses of halos via images of sea-mines, a complex series of interconnections are revealed that are now being tapped into by Government-sanctioned information leaflets relating to the Coronavirus outbreak.

Book Review: Faithful Families: Creating Sacred Moments at Home

Book Review: Faithful Families: Creating Sacred Moments at Home

Sacred Moments: Palliative Care as Lived Experience

Sacred Moments: Palliative Care as Lived Experience

Sacred moments in psychotherapy from the perspectives of mental health providers and clients: Prevalence, predictors, and consequences.

Sacred moments in psychotherapy from the perspectives of mental health providers and clients: Prevalence, predictors, and consequences.

Conversations with Eeyore: Spirituality and the generation of hope among mental health providers

A growing body of research has highlighted the value of spiritual resources for patients and their families. However, spirituality has been largely overlooked as a source of hope and support for providers themselves. In this paper, the author draws on theory, research, and practical examples to suggest that spirituality could potentially assist providers struggling to generate and sustain their own hope in work with clients who are in the midst of despair. The paper focuses on three ways practitioners might access spiritual resources to facilitate hope in their work: (1) by illuminating the sacred character of mental health work; (2) by attending to the sacred dimension of clients' lives; and (3) by attending to the experience of sacred moments in the healing relationship. These resources may be of value not only to theistically-oriented practitioners but to nontheists as well.

Perspectives on “Sacred Moments” in Psychotherapy

In this article, we describe a clinical experience and offer comments on it from the perspectives of a psychoanalyst, a psychotherapy researcher, and a historian of religions. The clinical context is a psychodynamic psychotherapy with a patient who is describing what she has tentatively thought about intellectually as a “paranormal experience,” but she is concerned that it might be further evidence to support labeling her as an odd, weird, and “severely pathologic” individual. Our purpose is to encourage clinicians to be open to our patients’ descriptions of anomalous experiences and to work with patients to construct meanings of these experiences that will promote health, positive coping, and growth. A midcareer intensive care unit cardiologist had been in treatment for over a year when the following session occurred. Her DSM-IV diagnosis had been major depression. She was distressed by a series of disappointments in her personal and professional life. A simplifi ed version of her developmental history is that she had a long series of severe, but not technically “traumatic,” developmental interferences, beginning with rather extreme and odd failures of “self-object function” by both parents. Repeatedly, she would come to them with an idea, thought, or feeling to which they would respond dismissively, accusingly, or in other ways that made her feel foolish and “inappropriate.” She had attempted treatment with several psychiatrists and other professionals before referral for a more intensive psychotherapy. We were meeting twice a week at the time of the following session. She was a faculty member of a department that included a well-known chairman, “Dr. Brown.” In addition to his great scientifi c and clinical productivity, Dr. Brown possessed a legendary ability to make faculty, residents, staff, and students feel important and feel that they were valued members of “the Team.”

Encountering the Sacred: Person—centered therapy as a spiritual practice / Dem Heiligen begegnen: Personzentrierte Therapie als spirituelle Praxis / Encontrando lo sagrado: La terapia centrada en la persona centrada como una práctica espiritual / La Rencontre du Sacré: La thérapie centrée sur la personne en tant que pratique spirituelle / Encontro com o Sagrado: A Terapia Centrada no Cliente enquanto

An authentic search for the sacred has been an integral part of person—centered psychotherapy. As he grew older Rogers (1980) realized that it made good sense to give spirituality a greater voice in psychotherapy. Gendlin (1984) highlighted the remarkable role of bodily felt knowing in developing an awareness of spirit. What is felt in the human organism increasingly leads to a broadening of the experiential field and a discovery of meaning. Moments of change are very different in nature and sometimes they appear as peak experiences or sacred moments that nourish the soul. The psychotherapeutic relationship and the experiencing process point in the direction of a deeper cosmic process and involve a sense of transcendence: the experience that life is infused with sacredness and individuals are essentially spiritual beings. Recent studies have shown that people who receive some form of therapy that integrates spirituality make significant positive changes in their lives.

Sacred moments: Implications on well‐being and stress

This research provides a theoretical, empirical, and qualitative examination of the role of cultivating sacred moments in daily life on subjective well-being (SWB), psychological well-being (PWB), and stress. Seventy-three participants were randomly assigned to two groups: (a) a 3-week intervention group where members were instructed in cultivating sacred moments, or (b) a 3-week control group where members were instructed in writing about daily activities. Findings indicate that the intervention was equally as effective as an adapted therapeutic writing intervention. There were significant effects over time across multiple assessments related to SWB, PWB, stress, and daily spiritual experiences after the 3-week intervention and again 6 weeks later. Qualitative analysis complemented and enriched the findings of these results. This study introduces a new intervention into the field of clinical psychology and extends the findings of prior research.

Sacred Moments: The Human-to-Human Encounter Between Palliative Care Nurses and People Who Are Dying

Sacred Moments: The Human-to-Human Encounter Between Palliative Care Nurses and People Who Are Dying

Sacred Moments: The Human-to-Human Encounter Between Palliative Care Nurses and People Who Are Dying

Sacred Moments: The Human-to-Human Encounter Between Palliative Care Nurses and People Who Are Dying

“Sacred Moments”: Social anxiety in a larger perspective

A treatment protocol was developed and piloted to examine whether perception of the sacred dimensions of their lives can be enhanced for people with social anxiety, and if so, whether that has therapeutic benefit. A 10-session manualized group treatment was developed to increase perception of sacredness in various domains of daily life. The treatment is described, as are preliminary results from two pilot groups. The small sample size limits quantitative analysis, but qualitative follow-up interviews, single-case analysis, and case material indicate decreased anxiety over time. Enhanced sense of sacredness appeared useful in broadening attentional focus, interrupting dysfunctional thought patterns, and generating behaviors incompatible with social anxiety. Focusing on sacredness instead of symptoms allowed participants to form supportive interpersonal relationships within the group, providing a corrective experience of social interaction. Although health professionals rarely discuss religion and spirituality with their clients, participants in these pilot groups welcomed the opportunity to do so.

Sacred moments being there

<i>Sacred moments</i> being there