Spiritual Suffering from Medieval German Mysticism to Mother Teresa: A Psycholinguistic Analysis

Two computer programs, SSWC (Sundararajan-Schubert Word Count) and LIWC (Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count), were used in combination to analyze the texts of 3 religious writers—one true mystic (Johannes Tauler), one false mystic (Thomas Müntzer) from medieval German Christianity, and one modern “saint,” Mother Teresa (Warren, 2010 Warren , R. ( 2010 , Aug. 31 ). Introduction . In D. Van Biema & R. Lacayo (Eds.), Mother Teresa at 100/The life and works of a modern saint (pp. 6 – 7 ). New York , NY : TIME Books .Crossref] , Google Scholar], p. 7). Results suggest that reflections on spiritual suffering that loom large in both medieval German mysticism and Mother Teresa constitute an adaptive approach to negative emotions, so far unexplored. Implications for research on negative religious coping, and adaptive versus maladaptive reflections on negative emotions will be discussed.