Spiritual Resources Research Articles

Trauma, World Assumptions, and Coping Resources among Youthful Offenders: Social Work, Mental Health, and Criminal Justice Implications

The purpose of this study was to contribute to the extant literature by examining the relationship of traumatic and stressful life experiences among youthful offenders aged 18–24 years old. The sample included 38 youthful offenders incarcerated in the New Jersey Department of Corrections in 2008. During in-person interviews, youthful offenders completed a survey that gathered information on cumulative trauma, world assumptions, and coping resources using the Stressful Life Experiences Screening Inventory-Long Form, World Assumption Scale, and Coping Resources Inventory. A series of OLS regression analyses revealed partial support for the study hypotheses that cumulative trauma is significantly and negatively associated to youthful offenders’ basic world assumptions about the world having meaning. Opposite of what was expected, it was found that cumulative trauma was significantly and positively associated with spiritual coping resources among youthful offenders. These findings have important implications for developing and improving interdisciplinary and multi-level trauma assessment and intervention strategies with youthful offenders.

The Relationship Between Depression and Loneliness Among Homebound Older Persons: Does Spirituality Moderate This Relationship?

Previous investigators have confirmed that loneliness is related to depression in late life. In this study we examined the potential buffering effects that spirituality might have on loneliness and depression among 40 older persons who lived alone and were homebound. The relationship between loneliness and depression was statistically significant, but the moderating effect of spirituality on this relationship was not statistically significant. We noted patterns based on an analysis of covariance that spirituality might potentially mitigate the effect of loneliness on depression under some circumstances. The findings suggest that spiritual resources might buffer the adverse effects of depression and loneliness among the current cohort of homebound older adults and might improve these older persons' mental health and quality of life.

Utilizing Eastern Spirituality in Clinical Practice: A Qualitative Study of Chinese Women with Breast Cancer

Drawing on the empirical findings of a qualitative study on Chinese women with breast cancer, this article presents the women's experience of spirituality and discusses the implications of culturally competent practice that addresses spirituality. Following the constructivist research approach, in-depth interviews were conducted with 26 Chinese women with breast cancer. The findings reveal their spirituality is manifested through (1) experiencing a spiritual shock, (2) making meaning, (3) achieving connectedness, and (4) attaining transcendence. The Eastern cultural teachings of embracing suffering, letting go and living in the moment, and meditative practice have important implications for social work practice. Culturally competent practice requires social workers to appreciate the diverse ways that clients use spiritual resources and reflect on how our own spirituality may affect intervention.

Committed White Male Teachers and Identifications: Toward Creative Identifications and a “Second Wave” of White Identity Studies

Committed White male teachers of inner-city students seeks to supersede previous research on White teacher and other White identities by narrating respondents’ “creative identifications” and initiating a “second wave” of White identity studies. This research reflection articulates complex, viable, and creative White identities, reconceptualized here as creative identifications. Using life history methodology, this research reflection articulates respondents’ identifications as they emerge in life histories. Critiquing, engaging, and extending scholarship on White teachers, this reflection reveals respondents’ recodings of White identifications and articulates how these recodings become useful in classrooms. Specifically, respondents recode bounded identifications, at times in progressive ways, using alternative media, illegal drug experiences, process spirituality, and other cultural resources in processes of “self” identification. This reflection articulates these complex and nuanced White teacher identifications as they relate to classrooms and race visible, rather than color-blind, identifications. These findings critique activist-interventionist research on White teachers’ “false consciousnesses” for its essentialzing tendencies and suggest a move toward creative identifications and a “second wave” of White identity studies illuminating them. The second wave of White identity studies, which this research exemplifies and calls for, emphasizes respondents’ narrative becoming rather than essentialized being as a basis for a continued research on White identities.

Women and Aging: Insights for Care from a Clinical Perspective

The purpose of this article is to generate pastoral clinical insights from the life experiences of three women entering the fourth quarter of life. The author considers how both physical, emotional, and spiritual resources as well as challenges can either enhance or disturb well-being. The author concludes that each of the women, having been in counseling for at least one year, has experienced an enhanced personal sense of well-being. Emerging from the clinical analysis, the author makes suggestions for helpful congregational pastoral care.

The Meaning and Engagement of Spirituality for Positive Youth Development in Social Work

Spirituality is becoming recognized as an important source of strength within social work and the positive youth development field. However, social work innovations related to spirituality have mainly focused on adults. In order to increase focus on youth, this article integrates insights about spirituality from the positive youth development field and social work. First, it provides a conceptualization of spirituality in relation to youth. Second, the article explains the importance of spirituality for strengths-based social work that can enhance youth development by attending to issues of meaning and identity, development toward adulthood, risk factors, and personal and environmental religious and spiritual resources. It highlights spirituality-based helping practices that may be applicable to working with youth.

Book Reviews

Spiritual resources in family therapy (2nd edition)

Libidinous Laureates and Lyrical Maenads: Michael Field, Swinburne and Erotic Hellenism

In 1889 Field--the pseudonymous identity of Katharine Bradley and Edith Cooper--published Long Ago, a volume of lyric poetry based on the extant Sapphic fragments. In deference to the poet whom they called the guardian of the lyrics, Bradley and Cooper sent a copy of Long Ago to Algernon Swinburne, together with a short letter: With flaming sword you have kept guard over the Lesbian lyrics; I have passed by you & touched the sacred things, & though I know my rifling to have been sad & mad & bad, it has been to me sweet that, unrepentant as I recross the barrier, I lay my spoil in your hands. Fiery vengeance take if you will, Poet of Anactoria. I shall not strive but remain as before Yours in sincere admiration, Michael Field (1) This brief note is illuminating in a number of respects, not least because Michael Field reveal that they were devotees of the work of Swinburne. In fact Bradley and Cooper considered Swinburne to be the best poet in England and a worthy successor to the Poet Laureate. Sharing Swinburne's love of Elizabethan and Jacobean drama, the women were avid readers of Swinburne's critical writing and they were interested in the same kind of dramatic models. In a number of cases, Michael Field treated the same dramatic subjects as Swinburne, including Mary Stuart, Sappho, and Tristan de Leonois. Inspired by Swinburne's poetics and aesthetic creed, I suggest that Bradley and Cooper were moved to emulate and to refashion the work of their poetic precursor. As we shall see, many of the central characters of Michael Field's early dramas suffer their desires. In most cases, these classical characters suffer not because their desires are shockingly aberrant, but because of the intensity of eros. This seemingly paradoxical combination of pleasure and pain, heavily reminiscent of Swinburne's poetry, can be seen to form the basis of Michael Field's Hellenic aesthetic. If Swinburne was, as John Morley memorably described him, the libidinous laureate of a pack of satyrs, I suggest that Bradley and Cooper can be seen as complementary lyrical maenads. (2) As Katharine Bradley and Edith Cooper forged one of the most fascinating and productive literary collaborations of the nineteenth century. (3) Together, aunt and niece produced eight volumes of poetry, twenty-seven plays, and thirty-six foolscap volumes of their joint journal. Their career lasted for over thirty years and they enjoyed the company and respect of some of the most famous artists and writers of the late nineteenth century. In recent years Michael Field, much like Swinburne, has been rediscovered as an important voice within late Victorian movements such as Aestheticism and Decadence. (4) In the following pages I intend to emphasize Bradley and Cooper's contributions to Victorian Hellenism, and in so doing highlight the relationship between Michael Field's poetry and Swinburne's influential Hellenic poetics. Like many of their male contemporaries, Michael Field employed Hellenism as an authoritative and scholarly discourse through which they could subversively celebrate (same-sex) sexual pleasure. Aside from the transgressive potential of ancient Greek literature and myth, Hellenism presented Bradley and Cooper with a philosophical and spiritual resource through which they could explore such subjects as religion, power, identity, sexuality, and gender. In the Greek drama Callirrhoe. (1884), for example, Bradley and Cooper incorporate such themes as the anguish of religious conversion, the pains and pleasures of forbidden love, the prevalence of sexual violence, and the virtues of sensual passion. At once life-affirming and utterly tragic, Callirrhoe represents the paradoxes of passion. Almost twenty years earlier, Swinburne had similarly employed Hellenic subjects in his dramatic poem Atalanta in Calydon (1865) and in his first, now notorious, volume of poetry, Poems and Ballads (1866). …

Are We Treating Pain or Patients Suffering from Pain?

In response to the manuscript “Are Spirituality and Religiosity Resources for Patients with Chronic Pain Conditions?”[1], John W. Gilbert [2] implicitly raised two important issues in the treatment of patients with chronic pain conditions: How do medical doctors (MDs) behave when facing a situation difficult to control, and who is the healer? Gilbert stated that a recent study among 1,134 physicians found that only 29% believed that the medical outcomes were related to transcendent sources [3]. That is a quite high number because MDs are trained to analyze their patients' problems and to rapidly find a solution (i.e., prescribing drugs), they are trained to control the situation—or to “manage the life of others.” One may assume that there is no need to rely on the specific biographical background or convictions of the patients because they are the trained experts. In a recent study [4], we have investigated in 237 MDs (i.e., 42% women, 58% men; mean age 46 ± 10 years; 79% Christians, 5% other, 16% none) of different specialties and …

Spiritual Resources in Family Therapy. By Froma Walsh (ed.)

Spiritual Resources in Family Therapy. By Froma Walsh (ed.)

Exploring Perceptions of Cancer Care Delivery Among Older Mexican American Adults

To investigate older Mexican Americans' perceptions of cancer care delivery, specifically regarding perceived discrimination. Qualitative. Senior centers and participants' homes. 5 older Mexican American cancer survivors. The sample included five Spanish-speaking Mexican Americans with low incomes who were previously diagnosed with cancer. Ages ranged from 68-86 years (X = 76.4). Participants were recruited through several community-based agencies and resources. Interviews were conducted and recorded on audiotape in participants' homes or at a senior center. A demographic questionnaire and the Mini Mental State Exam were administered in English or Spanish. Perceptions of healthcare delivery. Three themes emerged from the interview data: (a) emotional responses to cancer diagnosis, (b) relationship with healthcare providers, and (c) use of spiritual resources in coping with cancer. Participants denied experiencing any discrimination in health care related to race, ethnicity, income, or language spoken. Perceptions of good and poor-quality health care are described. Participants were satisfied with the cancer care they received, with a few exceptions. The role of age and education level in perceived discrimination needs further exploration. Replication of this study with larger, culturally diverse samples is needed to increase understanding of the role of perceived discrimination in cancer care and to develop culturally responsive, evidence-based healthcare interventions for patients and families coping with cancer.

Forgiveness: Another Relationship ``F Word''—A Couple's Dialogue

Forgiveness is one of the most frequently cited virtues that philosophers, spiritual teachers, and counselors use in their healing practices. Following a brief overview to the importance of forgiveness, a series of experiential activities between you and your partner will explore the following topics: (a) your past history on the concept of forgiveness; (b) your own personal history with forgiveness before your current significant relationship; and (c) forgiveness in your present relationship. Next, we address professional and spiritual resources concerned with spiritual forgiveness and self-forgiveness. The article concludes with additional forgiveness theory, a forgiveness checklist, and a quote from the movie Smoke Signals.

Spiritual Dimensions of the Perioperative Experience

Nurses recognize the importance of spiritual care for facilitating healing and positive outcomes. Nurses caring for patients in highly technical surgical environments have unique opportunities and challenges when attending to patients' spiritual needs. Patients facing surgery often regard the event and the health implications associated with it as having meaning and significance for their lives. They draw upon spiritual resources to respond to the challenges of their illness and surgery. This article addresses the effect of life transition and uncertainty on a patient's surgical experience. Suggestions are made for ways perioperative nurses can provide spiritual care to help create healing environments. AORN J 89 (May 2009) 875–882. © AORN, Inc, 2009.

Are Spirituality and Religiosity Resources for Patients with Chronic Pain Conditions?

We studied whether or not spirituality/religiosity is a relevant resource for patients with chronic pain conditions, and to analyze interrelations between spirituality/religiosity (SpREUK Questionnaire; SpREUK is an acronym of the German translation of "Spiritual and Religious Attitudes in Dealing with Illness"), adaptive coping styles that refer to the concept of locus of disease control (AKU Questionnaire; AKU is an acronym of the German translation of "Adaptive Coping with Disease"), life satisfaction, and appraisal dimensions. In a multicenter cross-sectional study, 580 patients with chronic pain conditions were enrolled. We found that the patients relied on both external powerful sources of disease control and on internal powers and virtues, while Trust in Higher Source (intrinsic religiosity) or Illness as Chance (reappraisal) were valued moderately; Search for Meaningful Support/Access (spiritual quest orientation) was of minor relevance. Stepwise regression analyses revealed that the internal sources of disease control, such as Conscious and Healthy Way of Living and Positive Attitudes, were (apart from the religious denomination) the strongest predictors of patients' reliance on spirituality/religiosity. Both behavioral styles were rated significantly lower in patients who regarded themselves as neither religious nor spiritual. Positive disease interpretations such as Challenge and Value were clearly associated with a spiritual quest orientation and intrinsic religiosity. The associations between spirituality/religiosity, positive appraisals. and internal adaptive coping strategies indicate that the utilization of spirituality/religiosity goes far beyond fatalistic acceptance, but can be regarded as an active coping process. The findings support the need for further research concerning the contributions of spiritual coping in adjustment to chronic pain.

Medical versus Spiritual Orientations: Differential Patient Views toward Recovery

Background: Relapse among patients in substance abuse treatment has generated interest in identifying attitudinal factors that sustain recovery. Objective: To assess the relationship of attitudes toward approaches to motivation for treatment and Twelve Step beliefs. Methods: Dually diagnosed patients (N = 100) completed a survey assessing treatment attitudes, motivation, and Twelve Step beliefs. Results: Endorsement of medical services was positively correlated with motivation but unrelated to Twelve Step beliefs. Endorsement of religious services was unrelated to motivation but was associated with Twelve Step beliefs. Conclusions: Patients may have differing perceptions regarding routes to recovery based on preferences for professional services or spiritual resources.

Power of Place: The Religious Landscape of the Southern Sacred Peak (Nanyue 南嶽) in Medieval China (review)

Reviewed by: Power of Place: The Religious Landscape of the Southern Sacred Peak (Nanyue 南嶽) in Medieval China Michael Saso (bio) James Robson. Power of Place: The Religious Landscape of the Southern Sacred Peak (Nanyue 南嶽) in Medieval China. Harvard East Asian Monographs 316. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2009. xx, 506 pp. Hardcover $90.00, isbn 978-0-674-03332-0. This text contains descriptions and illustrations of the Southern Sacred Peak, Nanyue, and other locations classified under the Nanyue (Southern Peak) name. Robson uses a wealth of Confucian, Buddhist, and Daoist sources for identifying the Five Sacred Peaks. Sources include the Zhou dynasty Shang Shu, the Zhou Li (redacted in the Han dynasty), and the Han dynasty (206 b.c.e. to 200 c.e.) composition Shanhai Jing 山海經 from the pre-Tang and Tang dynasty (618–906) Buddhist canon, and Daoist canonical texts from the Ming dynasty Zhengtong edition, 1436–1445 (compiled from earlier sources). This splendid, groundbreaking study contains a wealth of historical and textual references. It shows that a single religious or spiritual cultivation resource does not suffice in order to understand the full significance of the Five Sacred Peaks as they have been explained in Western sources up to the present, which have been limited by a single disciplinary approach to a wealth of cultural and internal cultivation materials. The profundity of James Robson's years of painstaking research must be read and thoroughly digested to understand fully his careful description of the complicated process involved in writing dynastic and local histories, which include imperial, scholarly, religious, as well as Confucian political interests involved in naming and identifying China's Sacred Peaks (chapter 1). The actual position of Nanyue (the Southern Sacred Peak) differed during various periods of Chinese history for Daoist, Buddhist, Confucian, and imperial convenience. The earliest reference, from the Shi Jing Book of Odes, in the Mao Heng commentary (dates uncertain, ca. 3–2 b.c.e.), names only four peaks: Mount Dai (Tai) 岱 in the east, southern Mount Heng 南岳橫, western Mount Hua 西嶽 [End Page 562] 華, and northern Mount Heng 北岳恆. The name of the fifth, Central Peak, appears in texts influenced by the Yinyang Five Element Cosmology, especially those texts influenced by the early Han dynasty New Text school. The various place names given to the location of the Southern Sacred Peak were sometimes decided according to the whims of emperors, who sought a spatially or politically convenient place to offer worship. The Han dynasty redacted Book of Rites required that emperors worshipped at each of the five sacred peaks. The addition of Mount Song, the zhongyue 中岳嵩 central peak, was added to ensure that the imperial rule would last forever. Worshiping at the five peaks was believed to correspond to the cycling of the five elements/spirit protectors over a twelve-month period. Worshiping at the peaks would ensure the protection of the spirits for an everlasting rule. (The Mingtang altar was erected within the imperial courtyard so that the emperor could perform the annual worship at home, in the palace, without the need to travel continually throughout China. See chapter 2, "Moving Mountains.") The first part of the study ends with a discussion, in chapter 3, on how the Southern Peak was seen in literary, religious, and popular devotional sources. It was visited by the great emperors and rulers of the past, including China's first three mythical rulers: Yao, Shun, and Yu the Great (China's Noah, who stopped the floods by sacred dance, instead of building an ark). Part 2 of Robson's work contains the most colorful and (for the reviewer) interesting and useful accounts of Heng Shan's image from Daoist and Buddhist sources. All of the great Daoists, men and women, as well as Buddhist masters, from the North-South period through the Tang dynasty, are commemorated in shrines found within the huge mountain complex that comprises the Southern Peak today. Among the most important of these enshrinements are: (1) Xi Wang Mu 西王 母, the mythical goddess of Mt. Kunlun in western China; (2) the historically real woman Daoist Wei Huacun 魏華存, to whom is attributed the founding of Mao Shan Shang Qing 上清 "Highest Purity" contemplative Daoism (chapter 6...

Confucian Humanism as a Spiritual Resource for Global Ethics

Confucian Humanism as a Spiritual Resource for Global Ethics

Determining Relationships Between Physical Health and Spiritual Experience, Religious Practices, and Congregational Support in a Heterogeneous Medical Sample

Previous research indicates that increased religiosity/spirituality is related to better health, but the specific nature of these relationships is unclear. The purpose of this study was to determine the relationships between physical health and spiritual belief, religious practices, and congregational support using the Brief Multidimensional Measure of Religiousness/Spirituality and the Medical Outcomes Scale Shortform-36. A total of 168 participants were surveyed with the following medical disorders: Cancer, Spinal Cord Injury, Traumatic Brain Injury, and Stroke, plus a healthy sample from a primary care setting. The results show that individuals with chronic medical conditions do not automatically turn to religious and spiritual resources following onset of their disorder. Physical health is positively related to frequency of attendance at religious services, which may be related to better health leading to increased ability to attend services. In addition, spiritual belief in a loving, higher power, and a positive worldview are associated with better health, consistent with psychoneuroimmunological models of health. Practical implications for health care providers are discussed.

“Thematic archetypes” and new era fiction

在汉语言文化背景下，对西方的“原型批评”概念有必要进行本土化阐释。在中国民间故事、传说与新时期小说的联系中，存在着四种“主题原型”：一是人与自然共生共存；二是人经历考验、发挥潜能；三是在神奇幻境的书写中表达对现实的不满；四是批判重利轻义、贪得无厌的物化人格。这些“主题原型”在新时期小说中的呈现形态、置换动力、现实文化意义和美学价值，反映了作家对“现代性”的反思和本土审美意识的觉醒。另外，中国传统民间文化和文学所包含的“天人合一”的世界观、“重义轻利”的人生观、肯定道德生命人格的价值观等，有可能成为我们回应当下生活、重建生活诗学、提升文化品格的重要精神资源。 Against the backdrop of Chinese culture, this paper offers a localized explanation of the Western concept of “archetypal criticism.” It proposes that four “thematic archetypes” can be observed in the relations between folklore, legends and the novel in the new era (since reform and opening up) in China. The first is the coexistence of man and nature; the second, enduring suffering and realizing one's potential; the third, discontent with reality expressed in writing about imaginary worlds; and the last, criticism of the materialistic personality which places material gain above justice and lusts after gain. The presentation, dynamics of change, practical and cultural meanings and aesthetic values of these “thematic archetypes” in the novels of the new era reveal writers' reflections on “modernity” and the awakening of aesthetic consciousness in relation to their own land. This paper also argues that the world outlook that pursues harmony between man and nature, the view of life that prefers justice to material gain, and the values that affirm morality, life and human dignity contained in traditional Chinese folk culture and literature may supply us with important spiritual resources for responding to contemporary life, rebuilding the poetry of life and raising the quality of culture.

Female transnational migration, religion and subjectivity: The case of Indonesian domestic workers

AbstractDrawing on an analysis of in‐depth interviews with returned migrant women from East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia, this paper considers the links between migration, religious beliefs and subjectivity. Low‐skilled migrant women, including domestic workers, have often been represented as marginalised. This paper argues that in the context of migration, women constantly move through trajectories of power using religion as a spiritual resource. Against the commonly patriarchal characteristics of their religion and community, the women employ cognitive strategies to face challenges in migration. In each stage of their transnational migration, the women's experiences reveal the multitude of ways in which they continue to invest in their beliefs through everyday practices, rituals and networking. These experiences highlight the women's strategies in accessing different forms of power. This study demonstrates the significance of focusing on these women's experiences, including their everyday religious practices and their shifting sense of self, as a way of broadening the conceptual basis of our understanding of female migration.