Spiritual Transformation: A Phenomenological Study Among Recovering Substance Abusers

As a complement to an earlier quantitative investigation, this qualitative study was concerned with describing the lived experience of spiritual transformation within the context of a 12-month resident substance abuse recovery program called the Lazarus Project, which is sponsored by a southern U.S. Pentecostal-based congregation. We conducted phenomenological interviews with 10 participants (eight European-Americans; two African-Americans) who had been in the program from six to nine?months and asked that they describe their most important spiritual experiences that brought about change. A hermeneutical analysis found that a pattern of five overlapping themes emerged consistently across all 10 protocols to describe the meaning of the experience of spiritual transformation for these participants. The themes were: (1) “Sick and Tired”, (2) Unmerited Love, (3) “I’m Changing,” (4) Fast/Gradual, and (5) Destiny. The themes are discussed from an existential perspective and related to the literature on spiritual transformation as well as the earlier quantitative study at the Lazarus Project.     

Religio-Biography, Coping, and Meaning-Making Among Persons with HIV/AIDS

Recently, quality of life studies among patients with HIV/AIDS have shown high levels of life satisfaction. Spiritual and religious factors may contribute to these positive outcomes. We interviewed 19 patients with HIV/AIDS in order to understand better the role of religious‐spiritual biographies and orientations in quality of life, and found four patterns to describe the ways in which past experiences with religion/spirituality and religious/spiritual meaning‐making help to explain how patients are currently coping with HIV/AIDS. We illustrate each of these patterns with a prototypic patient: (1) the Deferring Believer (“God allows things to happen for a reason.”); (2) the Collaborating Believer (“This is where I'm supposed to be.”); (3) the Religious/Spiritual Seeker (“I'm trying to get my life together.”); and (4) the Self‐Directing Believer (“What else is new?”). The findings support a previously described theoretical model of meaning‐making in response to adversity, and they suggest the value of life course and narrative approaches to understanding religious coping.     

The Only Way Out Is Through: The Peril of Spiritual Bypass

Given the increased attention to spirituality in the counseling literature, with a primary emphasis on helping clients find their spiritual path, it is important for counselors to be aware of one potential pitfall of the spiritual path, namely spiritual bypass. Spiritual bypass occurs when clients seek to use their spiritual beliefs, practices, and experiences to avoid genuine contact with their psychological “unfinished business.” The purpose of this article is to define spiritual bypass, discuss the necessity of healing at the cognitive, emotional, and physical levels, as well as at the spiritual level for holistic wellness, and provide examples of clients in spiritual bypass.     

The Lazarus Project and Grace Ministries: The Role of Religious Nonprofits in Addressing Personal and Social Problems

This review essay of Williamson and Hood’s (2016) Psychology and Spiritual Transformation in a Substance Abuse Program: The Lazarus Project examines spiritual transformation in the context of substance abuse and homelessness. The essay first tackles the question of whether change results mostly from individual spiritual transformation experiences or from the social surroundings the converts are part of, based on the author’s research on spiritual transformation and homelessness as well as Williamson and Hood’s work, and then it examines the debate surrounding the application of Foucault’s “technologies of the self” to programs that are similar to the Lazarus Project. The last part of the essay offers a few methodological suggestions for studies of similar projects.     

Taking spiritual experiences seriously in the religious education classroom: a transrational approach

ABSTRACT

Spiritual experiences are common across religious and non-religious faiths, but schoolchildren are often afraid to share these because they fear ridicule from peers who are convinced religion is irrational. The need to speak about spirituality in religious education is increasingly recognised. Signposts suggests that intercultural understanding implies recognising religious students’ perception of reality and helping others understand it. Religious education in Norway now includes exploration of existential questions as a core element, and in England, making sense of religious, spiritual and mystical experiences has been suggested as a big idea. In this paper, we discuss how the dualistic paradigm of modern science makes it difficult to take spirituality seriously as lived experience and empirical phenomenon. Instead we suggest a transrational approach to explore our multidimensional reality in an intercultural dialogue where insiders and outsiders learn from each other. We also explore examples of transrational research on spiritual phenomena.     

The paradox of innocence dissociative “adhesive”; states in perpetrators of incest

This paper attempts to develop a phenomenology of the perpetrator's conviction of innocence in a condition of actual guilt. This phenomenology is developed through the investigation of dissociative states in a certain type of incestuous perpetrator: one who is herself a survivor of sexual abuse, physical abuse, or both. Clinical material suggests that certain types of schizoid perpetrators can genuinely experience the incestuous act as not really real not really sex, not really mine. This clinical phenomenon is examined from the perspective of two contemporary theoretical trends: the new view of the self as multiple (Bromberg, 1993; Mitchell, 1993), and the neo‐Kleinian formulation of “adhesive”; (Mitrani, 1994) or “autistic‐contiguous”; (Ogden, 1989, 1990) modes of pseudo‐object relatedness. Incestuous acts are conceived as occurring within a prelinguistic modality, and are therefore not encoded in discursive, autobiographical memory. The coexistence of dissociated, multiple self states and modalities accounts for the contradictory levels of object relatedness, memory, and concern frequently encountered in perpetrators of incest.     

Affinity, Identity, and Transcendence: The Experience of Religious Racial Integration in Diverse Congregations

How do members of disparate ethnic and racial heritages come to identify and achieve stable affiliation with multiracial congregations? This article specifies an approach to understanding member experiences of corporate belonging in diverse congregations using ethnic identity theory. Synthesizing ethnographic data drawn from two extensive case studies, the article provides a heuristic model for understanding the process by which members of disparate ethnic and racial heritages come to identify and achieve stable affiliation with multiethnic/multiracial congregations. Three “moments” (affinity with the congregation, identity reorientation, and ethnic transcendence) represent key phases in the lived religious experience of members as they co‐construct common bonds of spiritual kinship. Cautions and suggestions are provided for future research.     

Elements of Couple Psychotherapy and Awakening

SUMMARY

A basic premise of this article is that the couple relationship always contains elements of spiritual awakening. “Spiritual emergencies,” fresh love, and new pain all bring with them the potential of spiritual awakening. The limits in our ability to express love, receive love, and to sustain intimate contact in our couple relationship mirror the limits within our spiritual life. Our relative ignorance of the spiritual aspects of our couple relationship causes stagnation and suffering.     

THE DEEP CONDITIONS OF SECULARITY

In modern societies and cultures today, religion is widely perceived as basically even if not merely trivially “optional.” This is a contention strongly advocated by Charles Taylor, most notably in his monumental A Secular Age. Throughout his career, Taylor has made the question of religion in modernity the core of his interests. In his most recent work, A Secular Age, Taylor addresses challenging issues of what he calls the “contemporary spiritual experience” and speaks to “the spiritual hungers and tensions of secular modernity.” I critically consider three aspects of this immensely suggestive if not uncontroversial work: (1) I examine whether there is in fact a possible reversibility or revisability to the so‐called ‘optional’ nature of belief that Taylor thinks is characteristic of the secular age; (2) I scrutinize Taylor's notion of “immediacy” of belief in the same milieu; (3) I interrogate his use of the term “fullness” in delineating the temper of the secular age.     

Lost in the Myst?: Narrative Video Gaming Decreases Self-Reported Propensity for Spiritual/Religious Experience

Based on the proposition that the visual “what you see is what you get” environment of video games may undermine ability/motivation for mental simulation/internal narrative, we hypothesized that exposure to virtual gaming would lead to decreased propensity for spiritual/religious experience. Fifty-six Canadian undergraduates moderately interested in gaming completed measures of propensity for unitive (focus on connectedness) and numinous (focus on presence of Other) experiences online, and again following a randomly assigned virtual or text-based narrative gaming session. Self-reported unitive and numinous propensities both declined significantly following the virtual gaming session as expected. Mystical propensity declined following the text-based session as well, but numinous propensity tended to increase in this condition. Virtual gaming offers an absorbing “escape” narrative with comparatively little “in the head” effort that appears to diminish—at least temporarily—the propensity for spiritual/religious experience, which is predicated upon a sustained internal narrative involving the Unseen.     

Spirituality and Post‐Modernism: A Classroom Perspective

The question of the place of experience within spiritual development has been a vexed one. Believers in a spirituality unbounded by limitations of culture and religion advocate education into the experience of one's “true self” whereas believers in a communal notion of spirituality encourage educators to embed their programs of spiritual development within the myths and archetypes of society.

I aim to show, with reference to an action research project, that spiritual development is best facilitated via these commonly appreciated myths, legends and stories and that the affective dimension is insufficient on its own.

Nevertheless, I take issue with the charge that experiential methods are based on a kind of post‐modernist romanticism and are necessarily solipsistic or relativistic. The post‐modernism of our times repudiates romanticism and the assumption of a unitary consciousness. Spiritual development, in the final instance is to do with recognising a consciousness which is shared.     

“Queering” Spiritual Direction: Towards a Trans*-Literary Praxis

Abstract

The praxis of spiritual direction has a number of well-established orthodoxies, most notably Ignatian, Franciscan and Benedictine, each typically characterized as paths that invite us to become our “true” selves in God. This article interrogates practices of spiritual direction from a queer perspective, examining the exclusions and inclusions for trans* people implicit in traditional notions of “spiritual direction”. Concentrating on a theo-literary reading of Psalm 139 using trans* understandings of the terms “passing” and “stealth” and grounded in my experience as a trans* woman, a spiritual director and poet, this article presents critical strategies to enable trans* Christians to locate themselves in the Christian spiritual discourse.     

Childhood abuse and spiritual development among women religious

Childhood abuse is known to have a negative influence on human development. This study expected to find a spiritual attitude of acceptance, as measured by the Ego Grasping Orientation scale, would help mitigate effects of childhood abuse in the realm of spiritual development. Spiritual Experience Index (SEI) scores for 350 religious women were treated as a measure of spiritual maturity. Contrary to expectation, however, the sexually and the physically abused groups with a more accepting attitude scored lower on the SEI than the abused with a more controlling attitude and the nonabused. Implications for spiritual development and well-being are discussed.     

Reading the Lives of Others: Biography as Political Thought in Hannah Arendt and Simone de Beauvoir

In this essay, I focus on two biographical works by Hannah Arendt and Simone de Beauvoir that I read as political texts: Rahel Varnhagen: The Life of a Jewess (Arendt 1957 ) and “Must We Burn Sade?” (Beauvoir 2012 ). Reading Arendt's Varnhagen and Beauvoir's “Sade” side by side illuminates their shared preoccupation with lived experience and their common political premises: the antagonism between freedom and sovereignty, and the centrality of action and constructive relations with others. My argument is that these texts constitute an original style of political thinking, which I call politico‐biographical hermeneutics, or reading the life of others as exercises in political theory. Politico‐biographical hermeneutics, as I take it, is not a systematic methodology, but an approach to interpreting sociopolitical forces as they come to bear and are embodied and inscribed in the lived experiences, struggles, and works of representative or exemplary individuals. This approach identifies the political lessons of lived experience and supports one of the central claims of feminist philosophy, namely, that the personal and the political are not antithetical, but relational.     

Gay and Lesbian Spirituality: A Response to Donaldson

This article is a final response by the authors to S. M. Donaldson's comments (1998) on their article, “Spiritual Experiences of Gay Men and Lesbians.” The original article focused on the experiences and spiritual issues of self-identified gay men and lesbians.     

The Relationship Among Substance Abuse Counselors' Spiritual Well‐Being,Values, and Self‐Actualizing Characteristics and the Impact on Clients' Spiritual Well‐Being

This study explored the relationship between scores on the Spiritual Well‐Being Scale and subscales from the Rokeach Value Survey and the Personal Orientation Inventory of substance abuse counselors in the Commonwealth of Virginia. This study also examined the impact of counselors' spiritual well‐being on the spiritual well‐being of patients in their clinical care. The results indicated that the values of wisdom and loving from the Rokeach Value Survey and self‐acceptance from the Personal Orientation Inventory accounted for approximately half of the spiritual well‐being variance. These variables could be used as indicators in the supervisory process, could help promote substance abuse counselors' spiritual well‐being, and could educate counselors on burnout prevention. Follow‐up findings indicated a statistically significant change score on patients' pretest and posttest scores on the Spiritual Well‐Being Scale, indicating an increase in patients' spiritual wellbeing while in inpatient addiction treatment.     

The Spiritual Needs and Resources of Hospitalized Primary Care Patients

Previous studies have recognized the importance of hospitalized primary care patients’ spiritual issues and needs. The sources patients consult to address these spiritual issues, including the role of their attending physician, have been largely unstudied. We sought to study patients’ internal and external resources for addressing spiritual questions, while also exploring the physician’s role in providing spiritual care. Our multicenter observational study evaluated 326 inpatients admitted to primary care physicians in four midwestern hospitals. We assessed how frequently these patients identified spiritual concerns during their hospitalization, the manner in which spiritual questions were addressed, patients’ desires for spiritual interaction, and patient outcome measures associated with spiritual care. Nearly 30% of respondents (referred to as “R/S respondents”) reported religious struggle or spiritual issues associated specifically with their hospitalization. Eight-three percent utilized internal religious coping for dealing with spiritual issues. Chaplains, clergy, or church members visited 54% of R/S respondents; 94% found those visits helpful. Family provided spiritual support to 45% of R/S respondents. Eight percent of R/S respondents desired, but only one patient actually received, spiritual interaction with their physician, even though 64% of these patients’ physicians agreed that doctors should address spiritual issues with their patients. We conclude that inpatients quite commonly utilize internal resources and quite rarely utilize physicians for addressing their spiritual issues. Spiritual caregiving is well received and is primarily accomplished by professionals, dedicated laypersons, or family members. A significantly higher percentage of R/S patients desire spiritual interaction with their physician than those who actually receive it.     

“Using New Eyes”: Photography as a Spiritual Practice for Faith Formation and Worship

This article presents three cases of how Lutheran groups used photography as a spiritual practice in processes that led to group spiritual reflection for faith formation and worship: a photography club; a Photography as a Spiritual Practice mini‐course in a parish; and a six‐month parish project of communal art‐making of liturgical media art for one church's Easter Vigil readings.     

Radical Moral Imagination: Courage,Hope, and Articulation

This paper develops the basis for a new account of radical moral imagination, understood as the transformation of moral understandings through creative response to the sensed inadequacy of one's moral concepts or morally significant appraisals of lived experience. Against Miranda Fricker, I argue that this kind of transition from moral perplexity to increased moral insight is not primarily a matter of the “top‐down” use of concepts. Against Susan Babbitt, I argue that it is not primarily a matter of “bottom‐up” intuitive responsiveness to experience. Beyond courage and hope, radical moral imagination involves the articulation of inchoate experience, which allows individuals to make new kinds of moral moves and to lay claim to others' acknowledgment of the meaning of these moves.     

On Advantages of the Clear Mind: Spiritual Practices in the Training of a Phenomenological Researcher

The article describes the training of the mind of the researcher in the process of preparation for phenomenological psychological research. Training opens the direct intuition of the interior architecture and meaning contents of the lived embodied self, thus helping students to ground phenomenological concepts in their own lived experience. Training is based on the comparative analysis of the approaches to knowledge in phenomenology and in spiritual systems such as Hesychasm, Vedanta, Shakta-Vedanta and Sufism. Husserl's method and spiritual systems share epistemological ground in the emphasis on the "knowledge by presence" and the use of direct intuition. Spiritual systems posit that the mind of the knower should be specially trained to have faculties such as discernment, healthy character structure, and self-awareness, which enhance the capacity of knowledge. This training, designed on the basis of meditation methods adapted for academic purposes, causes positive shifts in self-awareness, sense of identity and self-attitudes. The method has potential applications as a mnemonic technique in higher education and as an ego-strengthening intervention in cases of depersonalization or spiritual emergence in therapy.