Assessing spiritual well-being: relating with God explains greatest variance in spiritual well-being among Australian youth

How do we set standards in assessing spiritual well-being (SWB)? Most measures provide only scores on arbitrary scales. Therefore, if the questions differ, the scores are likely to as well. This paper reports on two scales developed with 460 Australian secondary school students, with diverse cultural and religious backgrounds, from state, Catholic, Christian Community and independent schools. The four domains model of spiritual health/well-being was the theoretical base from which 12 items were developed to reflect quality of relationships with each of self, others, environment and God/the Divine. The instrument with the five top-scoring items in each domain, known as Spiritual Health And Life-Orientation Measure (SHALOM), has been sought for use in over 200 studies in 20 languages. The second-highest sets of five items were extracted and found to form statistically valid factors, for a new instrument called SWBQ2. As would be expected, the mean values for the factor scores varied between SHALOM and SWBQ2, overall and by school type. However, regression analyses of the lived experience scores showed that relating with God provided greatest explanation of variance in SWB, on both measures. A double-response method introduced for SHALOM was also used with SWBQ2 to compare each person’s lived experience with their ideals, better reflecting quality of relationships, rather than just the arbitrary scores. There was negligible difference in dissonance scores on the four factors in both measures, that is, in comparing the difference between ideals and lived experiences. This method showed consistency in the quality of relationships reflecting SWB, contrasted with variance shown using only lived experience, as mentioned above. Relating with God was again most influential on SWB. These findings have implications for methods used in assessing SWB as well as outcomes.     

The spiritual care of sick children: reflections from a pilot participation project

The authors are a multi-disciplinary team of chaplains, one with a counselling qualification, and an academic with a research background in spirituality and youth work. A pilot participation project undertaken at Birmingham Children’s Hospital (UK) focused on increasing the understanding of the spiritual needs of sick children and young people and involving children and young people in improving the service and provision of spiritual and religious care to them. Views from children, young people and parents were sought with the intention of developing resources and training that help facilitate the meeting of spiritual and religious needs of children and young people in hospital. Within the wider chaplaincy team are chaplains from the six major world faiths and this project considers spiritual needs of children and young people who perceive themselves as belonging to a faith group or not. Reflections from the pilot include identifying ten principles and practices to inform the spiritual care of sick children and proposing the concept of interpretive spiritual encounters as a tool for spiritual care. The pilot study indicated that being more proactive in offering spiritual care enhanced the quality of service offered by Chaplaincy.     

Knowing through the felt-sense: a gesture of openness to the other

In the discussion of children’s spirituality and education, David Hay and Brendan Hyde place emphasis on the felt-sense. Originally identified by the psychotherapist Eugene Gendlin, the felt-sense is a way of knowing that involves attentiveness to the body and body wisdom. Although emphasised by Hay and Hyde, the felt-sense does not feature strongly in the academic discussion of children’s spiritual education. This article compares Gendlin’s use of the term ‘felt-sense’ with that of Hay and Hyde, and discusses understandings of the felt-sense and body wisdom gathered through interviews with focusing, shiatsu and yoga practitioners, and through the author’s encounters with these practices. The article considers synergies between the notions of ‘felt-sense’ and ‘bildung’, as described by Gadamer, and concludes that their shared openness to the other points to ‘a way of being’ for the educator which may hold the greatest value for spiritual education, given the complexity of post-secular spiritual identity.     

Measuring attitude towards Buddhism and Sikhism: internal consistency reliability for two new instruments

This paper describes and discusses the development and empirical properties of two new 24-item scales – one measuring attitude towards Buddhism and the other measuring attitude towards Sikhism. The scale is designed to facilitate inter-faith comparisons within the psychology of religion alongside the well-established Francis Scale of Attitude towards Christianity. Data were obtained from a multi-religious sample of 369 school pupils aged between 13 and 15 in London. Application of the two scales demonstrated that adolescents had a more positive attitude to Buddhism than Sikhism. The findings confirm the reliability of the scales and commend them for further use.     

Effect of Islamic psycho-spiritual therapy in managing craving,withdrawal symptoms,and mental health problems among cannabis users

ABSTRACT

The present study is an examination of Islamic psycho-spiritual therapy in managing craving, withdrawal symptoms, and mental health problems among cannabis users. Homogeneous purposive sampling was used in the selection of the sample. The therapy and administration of three scales (Marijuana Craving Scale Short Form; Cannabis Withdrawal Scale; Mental Health Inventory) were undertaken among 40 Muslim male cannabis users whose age ranged between 14 and 37 years on pre- and post-test analysis. The results highlighted the significant differences in the respective dimensions of the Craving and Withdrawal Scales and the Mental Health Inventory such as compulsivity, emotionality, expectancy and purposefulness, withdrawal intensity and negative impact of withdrawal symptoms, anxiety, depression, loss of behavioural/emotional control, emotional ties, life satisfaction, psychological distress, psychological well-being, and mental health index.     

Physio Kundalini syndrome and mental health

The increasing practice of traditional eastern philosophies within the modern society has highlighted the difficulties of assimilation of these traditions within Western culture. This invariably results in difficulties on the part of the practitioners to integrate these practices into their daily lifestyle. The reasons for these are often complex. One of the contributing factors could be insufficient understanding or acquisition of a superficial interpretation of the eastern tradition or philosophies. The Kundalini concept comes from the yogic philosophy of ancient India and refers to mothering intelligence behind yogic awakening and spiritual maturation. We describe a case of a young male who presented with functional deterioration experiencing psychotic symptoms, which he describes as his Kundalini awakening.     

Spiritual well-being,burnout and trauma in counsellors and psychotherapists

Burnout represents a potential risk for counsellors and psychotherapists in their work with distressed clients. In the research reported here, the relationship between spiritual well-being and burnout was explored, with attention paid to clinicians’ perceptions of trauma. Eighty-nine Australian counsellors and psychotherapists (71 females and 18 males) completed a demographic survey, the Maslach Burnout Inventory, and Spiritual Well-Being Scale. It was found that existential well-being accounted for some of the variance in MBI subscale scores, and buffered the effect of trauma on emotional exhaustion. In addition, clinicians who reported high levels of existential well-being reported being better able to avoid emotional exhaustion when working with severely traumatised clients.     

Hidden Treasures in Theological Education: The Writing Tutor,the Spiritual Director,and Practices of Academic and Spiritual Mentoring

Mentoring is an important but often overlooked resource in theological education and students' academic and spiritual formation. This essay profiles the mentoring practices and postures of the writing tutor and the spiritual director as exemplars of academic and spiritual mentoring. An extended probe of this analogy affirms the integration of academic and spiritual formation as a core value in theological education; identifies mentoring in theological education as a hidden treasure fostering this integration and warranting attention as a theological practice; and re‐envisions the theological practice of mentoring under the traditional rubric of the “care of souls,” embracing the relational, educational, formational, spiritual, and rhetorical dimensions of this practice.     

Indigenous Healing Practices in Malawi

One of the most important areas of African culture in which the significant presence of traditional beliefs can be seen is through sickness and healing. In many traditional cultures, illness is thought to be caused by psychological conflicts or disturbed social relations that create a disequilibrium expressed in the form of physical or mental problems. In Malawi, traditional healing has been practised for centuries even before colonialisation. It is said that about 80 per cent of the population utilise traditional healers and medicine for their health needs. This paper sets out several of the issues and controversies that surround traditional healing and medicine in Malawi. An overview of the traditional Malawian theory of illness, the diversity of healing practices for somatic and psychosocial disorders, the socio-cultural context of healing and cultural interpretations of disease and intervention are provided. The problem of efficacy and scientific validation of traditional medicine is discussed.     

Miracles in Sport: Finding the ‘Ears to Hear’ and the ‘Eyes to See’

Paralympic Games (PG), involving people with disabilities (PWD), are a manifestation of excellence in sport. They show that athletics performed by PWD counts as genuine sport. They also support a wider meaning of the term ‘health,’ understood not just like a utopian state of perfection, but like the ability to realize oneself in the projects and activities of one’s own choosing. Notwithstanding these virtues, PG—in their current form—may paradoxycally reinforce social prejudice against PWD. This is due to the fact that PG and Olympic Games (OG) are now two distinct events. In this article, I argue that PG should be integrated in the OG, just like women’s and ‘minor’ sports, because the separation of PG and OG indicates a morally arbitrary separation between people with and without disabilities. I also propose to remove the word ‘Para-lympic’ because it stigmatizes the sport performed by PWD as an appendix of ‘normal’ sport. Athletes with disabilities deserve special attention because they have special needs; but they also deserve an arena where their excellence is offered to the public, and this arena should not be different from that of normal-bodied athletes.