“It’s like a charge – either fuses you or burns you out”: an interpretative phenomenological analysis of extreme mental states in meditation context

Meditation, an ancient Eastern spiritual practice, is increasingly being practised in the West where its benefits for mental and physical health have been established. Extreme mental states that can be encountered in the context of meditation have also been reported and often have been labelled as psychosis or spiritual emergency. This study aimed for more nuanced understanding of the phenomena. Interpretative phenomenological analysis was employed to explore the meaning-making of three meditation teachers from different philosophical traditions. The teachers described phenomenology of various extreme mental states, explained their nature according to their traditions and discussed ways of helping persons who experience these. Significance was given to having a spiritual teacher to provide guidance and support. The study highlights the importance of acknowledging the diverse understandings of the phenomena and cultivating a non-judgemental attitude towards it, which could help clinicians and meditation teachers work together to support persons experiencing these.     

Spiritual struggles and compassion: the positive side of moral concerns

A large body of research has focused on the negative consequences associated with spiritual struggles, with little consideration to the potential positive aspects of these experiences. To fill this void in literature, we investigated the relationship between spiritual struggles and state compassion using film methodology. The results of this study show that the moral concerns component of spiritual struggles is the only one that predicted feelings of compassion, and this relation was not explained by other individual differences factors. The results demonstrated that one facet of spiritual struggles can predict positive outcomes, such as compassion.     

Pierre De Bérulle (1575–1629) and the renewal of Catholic spiritual life in France

Pierre de Bérulle, founder of the Oratoire de Jésus (commonly known as the Oratoire de France), is a leading figure in the renewal of the Catholic Church in France in the first half of the seventeenth century. He is generally regarded as the founder of the French School of Spirituality (École française de spiritualité), though this term has been much criticised in recent years. He is often described as a ‘reformer’ of the Church in France, but this is a half-truth which obscures his real originality; he certainly shared the aims of those striving to create a clergy which would be better educated, more morally upright and more pastorally sensitive and zealous; but above all else he was concerned with the spiritual renewal of the clergy and with the Church in France generally. Lastly, he has often been accused of wishing to create chiefly, if not exclusively, a spirituality of the priesthood and to work for the ‘sanctification’ of the clergy. But his work and ideas must be seen here in a broader perspective, for Bérulle and his disciples shared with St Francis de Sales the aim, expressed in his Introduction à la vie devote (1608), of creating and promoting a spirituality available to all Christians. This article examines his conception of the Oratory, which he intended to be an intermediary between the religious orders and the secular clergy, his spiritual theology, what I have called his ‘spiritual pedagogy’, and his influence in France and elsewhere.     

Shared Moral and Spiritual Development Among Human Persons and Artificially Intelligent Agents

Technical advances in artificial intelligence make somewhat likely the possibility of robotic or software agents exhibiting or extending human-level intelligence within a few decades. Theological investigation can help meet significant research goals in artificial intelligence by orienting the development of agent communication and moral reasoning toward a shared moral and spiritual development of human persons and intelligent agents. In particular, Josiah Royce’s Loyalty-to-Loyalty initiates a moral stance within which humans and intelligent agents can develop constructive ethical frameworks and his semiotic philosophy of community can guide the development and functioning of an agent’s interpretive processes and can model shared spiritual formation.     

Parent–Child Interaction Therapy and Chronic Illness: A Case Study

We examined the outcome of parent–child interaction therapy (PCIT) for a child diagnosed with Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) and cancer. Robert, a 4-year-old Caucasian male, showed significant and meaningful changes in his behavior over the course of 13 weeks of PCIT, and Robert no longer met diagnostic criteria for ODD following treatment. His scores on the Eyberg Child Behavior Inventory and the Achenbach Child Behavior Checklist were in the clinical range before treatment and in the normal range at the conclusion of treatment. His mother also reported dramatic improvements in Robert's behavior during medical visits. Physician and social worker reports were consistent with her report. Such anecdotal data may have implications for the generalization of compliance to the medical setting for children with chronic illnesses. The results of this case study should prompt further investigation of parent-training interventions for children with chronic illnesses and disruptive behavior.     

Consumer Preference Programs for Individuals Who Are Homeless and Have Psychiatric Disabilities: A Drop-In Center and a Supported Housing Program

We illustrate Fairweather's approach to Experimental Social Innovation and Dissemination with two experimental studies of programs to reduce homelessness for 168 and 225 people with mental illness and often substance abuse. Literally homeless participants were randomly assigned to programs that emphasized consumer choice or to the usual continuum of care, in which housing and services are contingent on sobriety and progress in treatment. A drop-in center that eliminated barriers to access to services was more successful than control programs in reducing homelessness, but after 24 months only 38% of participants had moved to community housing. A subsequent apartment program, in which individuals in the experimental condition moved to subsidized apartments directly from the street, with services under their control, had 79% in stable housing (compared to 27% in the control group) at the end of 6 months. Groups in this study did not differ on substance abuse or psychosocial outcomes.     

江泽民思想道德教育论

江泽民的思想道德教育思想表现为对党的前代领导人德育思想的明显继承性,鲜明的理论创新性和内涵的丰富性等特色。他把德育纳入“三个代表”的重要内容,作为实现人的全面发展的必要条件,作为特色社会主义精神明建设的重要组成部分,作为以德治国、依法治国的重要措施之一,从而把德育提高到治国和兴国的战略高度。江泽民关于德育的学说,是对中华传统的优秀德育思想的弘扬,是对马克思德育理论的创新与发展。     

Sin and suffering in a Catholic understanding of medical ethics.

Drawing chiefly on recent sources, in Part One I sketch an untraditional way of articulating what I claim to be central elements of traditional Catholic morality, treating it as based in virtues, focused on the recipients ("patients") of our attention and concern, and centered in certain person-to-person role-relationships. I show the limited and derivative places of "natural law," and therefore of sin, within that framework. I also sketch out some possible implications for medical ethics of this approach to moral theory, and briefly contrast these with the influential alternative offered by the "principlism" of Beauchamp and Childress. In Part Two, I turn to a Catholic understanding of the nature and meaning of human suffering, drawing especially on writings and addresses of the late Pope John Paul II. He reminds us that physical and mental suffering can provide an opportunity to share in Christ's salvific sacrifice, better to see the nature of our earthly vocation, and to reflect on the dependence that inheres in human existence. At various places, and especially in my conclusion, I suggest a few ways in which this can inform bioethical reflection on morally appropriate responses to those afflicted by physical or mental pain, disability, mental impairment, disease, illness, and poor health prospects. My general point is that mercy must be informed by appreciation of the person's dignity and status. Throughout, my approach is philosophical rather than theological.     

Why patients should give thanks for their disease: traditional Christianity on the joy of suffering.

Patristic teaching about sin and disease allows supplementing well-acknowledged conditions for a Christian medicine with further personal challenges, widely disregarded in Western Christianities. A proper appreciation of man's vocation toward (not just achieving forgiveness but) deification reveals the need to cooperate with the Holy Spirit's offer of grace toward restoring man's pre-fallen nature. Ascetical exercises designed at re-establishing the spirit's mastery over the soul distance persons from (even supposedly harmless) passion. They thus inspire the struggle towards emulating Christ's (self-crucifying) kenotic love, and to accept even secularly "undeserved" suffering as spiritually deserved in view of his (forever) lacking fervor in that struggle. Only in the spirit of that love can the evil Adam's sin brought into this world work its therapeutic impact, the eschatological purpose of which explains God's lovingly permitting that evil. This therapeutic impact is physically manifested already in this life through the transforming energies granted the saints of the church.