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Rethinking Prayer and Health Research: An Exploratory Inquiry on Prayer’s Psychological Dimension
Abstract
A brief literature review of cancer survival trials is employed by the author to raise questions on their design and to bring speculatively into discussion concepts such as “worldview,” “intentional normative dissociation,” and “psychosomatic plasticity-proneness.” Using prayer’s psychological dimension as a way to unite such elements opens new fertile perspectives on the academic study of prayer and health. In this context, it is suggested that a consistent interdisciplinary research agenda is required in order to understand those biopsychosocial factors interconnected within the process and outcome of prayer before attempting to decipher the big answers laying dormant probably within the transpersonal and spiritual layers of human experience.
... The other crucial aspect of medicine refers to "the scientific study or practice of diagnosing, treating and preventing diseases or disorders of the body or mind of a person or animal" (5). The aspect of spirituality in the argument for a mind-body relationship in medicine is important, for the simple reason that the ultimate aim of medicine is to cure patients wholly of their illness, where illness refers to "the way in which people experience a disease or any biophysiological state that is an object of inquiry for the current medical practice" (6). Andrian Andreescu defines curing as "clinical recovery from disease" and healing, which refer to "how regained health is subjectively experienced by the former patient" (6). ...
... The aspect of spirituality in the argument for a mind-body relationship in medicine is important, for the simple reason that the ultimate aim of medicine is to cure patients wholly of their illness, where illness refers to "the way in which people experience a disease or any biophysiological state that is an object of inquiry for the current medical practice" (6). Andrian Andreescu defines curing as "clinical recovery from disease" and healing, which refer to "how regained health is subjectively experienced by the former patient" (6). He goes on to say that since objective measures cannot always account for the emotional and social costs of disease or illness, healing should be regarded as a "fundamental aspect of a person's well-being and a necessary part of an authentic state of health" (6: p 25) (8). ...
... In the words of Adrian Andreescu, the challenge is: "How can we bridge the divide between the consensual world of religiosity and the uniquely private world of spirituality, that relates to what might be viewed as the sacred?" (6). We must critically acknowledge this challenge and relate it to the substantive and functional distinctions between spirituality and religion. ...
Everyday experience shows that there is a commonality between spirituality and medical practice. A text message I received from a friend recently read, "Please pray for me. I've been getting a mysterious headache for some days now. I will be seeing the doctor today." This clearly speaks of a relationship: asking for prayer so as to be relieved of a "mysterious headache", yet going to see a doctor whose job is not to cure mysterious headaches. Even though both areas of human experience have their peculiar and largely unrelated methodologies, this paper argues that any extreme separation of the two is injurious to the teleology of both disciplines in relation to human well-being, which forms the core of spirituality and medicine.
The spiritual health of adolescents is recognized as being a topic of profound importance, yet little is known about the relationship between spiritual health and its broader impacts on the health of adolescents. This knowledge is necessary if we are to provide adequate spiritual health care to this population. In this article, we present the results of analyses involving a multi-dimensional scale for spiritual health that was adapted for use within adolescent populations.
A human being is essentially homo aestheticus and not in the first place homo faber. In the light of this basic assumption, it is argued that, due to poetic seeing, interconnectedness between art1, spirituality and the human quest for meaning exists. It is virtually impossible to define art. However, in one way or another, art is connected to imagination, inspiration and creativity. Art probes into the realm of the unseen, thus the value of iconic seeing in visual arts. By means of art, objects are moved into imagination and connected to the 'idea' beyond the vision of phenomenological observation. Serious art probes into the dimension of the unseen; it makes the invisible, visible. Art deals inter alia with 'signals of transcendence' (Peter Berger)2 and opens up new avenues for religious thinking and spiritual experiences. Serious art can thus contribute to the healing dimension of spiritual wholeness. Art can even assist theology in the reframing of existing God-images. In this regard, the notions of a Compassionate God and God as Covenantal Partner for Life, become appropriate alternatives for the imperialistic pantokrator-images (omni-categories) of theism.
Das Gebet ist eine der wichtigsten und häufigsten spirituellen Ressourcen vieler Menschen. Es drückt tiefe Sehnsüchte und interpersonelle Werthierarchien aus und vermittelt die gefühlte Präsenz einer höheren Macht. Gebet als individuelle Ausdrucksform verdient auch in der Psychotherapie Respekt und Würdigung. Die Versuche, das Gebet wissenschaftlich durch Doppelblindstudien zu beweisen, greifen zu kurz und sind als methodisch mangelhaft zu bewerten. Sie stellen eine manipulative Instrumentalisierung einer spirituellen Praxis dar, in der sehr viel tiefere Werte zum Tragen kommen. Die Frage, ob ein Gebet in einer psychotherapeutischen Beziehung sinnvoll ist, muss mit großer Zurückhaltung angegangen werden. Selbst wenn der Wunsch von Patienten geäußert wird, ist der Therapeut/die Therapeutin oft nicht sicher, ob er/sie die subkulturelle Ausdrucksform erfassen kann. Ein Problem ist dabei die Verschiebung des therapeutischen Intimitätsraumes und der Nähe-Distanz-Regulierung.
A human being is essentially homo aestheticus and not in the first place homo faber. In the light of this basic assumption, it is argued that, due to poetic seeing, interconnectedness between art[1], spirituality and the human quest for meaning exists. It is virtually impossible to define art. However, in one way or another, art is connected to imagination, inspiration and creativity. Art probes into the realm of the unseen, thus the value of iconic seeing in visual arts. By means of art, objects are moved into imagination and connected to the ‘idea’ beyond the vision of phenomenological observation. Serious art probes into the dimension of the unseen; it makes the invisible, visible. Art deals inter alia with ‘signals of transcendence’ (Peter Berger)[2] and opens up new avenues for religious thinking and spiritual experiences. Serious art can thus contribute to the healing dimension of spiritual wholeness. Art can even assist theology in the reframing of existing God-images. In this regard, the notions of a Compassionate God and God as Covenantal Partner for Life, become appropriate alternatives for the imperialistic pantokrator-images (omni-categories) of theism.
Poëtiese skoue in visuele kunste en teologie. Estetika as ‘n spirituele en liefdevolle kyk binne die raamwerk van die mens se soeke na sin
Die mens is wesenlik homo aestheticus en nie in die eerste plek homo faber nie. In die lig van die estetiese funksie van ‘n poëtiese skoue kan ‘n netwerkverband tussen kuns, spiritualiteit en die mens se soeke na sin voorveronderstel word. Dit is basies onmoontlik om kuns finaal te definieer. Tog het kuns op een of ander manier te doen met ‘ver-beeld-ing’, inspirasie en kreatiwiteit. Kuns dring die sfeer van die onsienlike binne en ‘maak’ op ‘n skeppende wyse die onsienlike in objekte en visuele waarneming, sigbaar; dit werk heuristies en kreatief-ontdekkend; dit penetreer die sogenaamde ‘idee’ agter dit wat mens in die fenomenologie van waarneming ‘sien’. Kuns is in ‘n sekere sin ikonies en staan in verband met transendensie. Kuns breek brute werklikheid oop en is ‘n soort van venster vir sinvolle spirituele ervaringe en religieuse denke. Ernstige kuns kan beskou word as ‘n vorm van heling op die vlak van ‘spirituele gesondheid’ (wholeness). Die basiese hipotese is dat die visuele kunste teologie kan help om bestaande, geykte vorme van teologisering, te transformeer. So byvoorbeeld kan die imperialistiese pantokrator-idee van‘n ‘onveranderlike, teïstiese God’ (omni-kategorie) deur middel van religieuse estetika verskuif na die sensitiewe ‘Mee-lydende God’ (patos-kategorie): God nie as kousaliteitsbeginsel nie maar as Lewende Verbondspartner.
[1] There are different levels and dimensions of art. The article focuses on the visual arts, although the principles of aesthetics are applicable to all forms of arts.
[2] Peter Berger (1992:121) in A Far Glory: The Quest for Faith in an Age of Credulity. “In openness to the signals of transcendence the true proportions of our experience are rediscovered. This is the comic relief of redemption; it makes it possible for us to laugh and to play with a new fullness.” Signals of transcendence create spiritual spaces for processes of hoping when life seems to be merely the tragedy of a cul de sac.
https://doi.org/10.19108/KOERS.80.1.2207
The first part of this essay argues that religious experience should not be viewed as an extraordinary kind of extra-sensory perception (visions, ecstasies etc) but as ‘hermeneutical’ in the sense that it entails an interpretation of our ordinary experience (including ordinary sense-perception) or sometimes of particularly impressive experiences of the world and of our lives in the light of faith. The heritage of faith in a religious tradition provides believers with a framework of understanding in terms of which they can look on things with the eyes of faith. Various key features of this kind of interpretation are explained. The second part of the essay shows how various forms of spirituality are ways in which believers are trained in looking on life and the world with the eyes of faith and explains what this entails for the life of faith.
The paper has a twofold purpose. The first is to explore: if God has settled His plans and He will do what He is going to do, then does it matter whether one prays or not? This section will also deal with the aspect of healing and prayer, specifically from a scientific perspective. The important question is: How should one treat reports of miraculous healings, and the� belief that prayer can affect healing? Secondly, if prayer has any effect on what happens, then it would seem that God� s plans are not fixed in the first place, and then the idea of an open-future would seem to be valid. As a result, one could no longer see the world as a mechanistic Newtonian picture. Rather , the picture portrayed would be of a world of flexibility and openness to change. The question would then be: What is the manner and scope of divine action and wherein lies the causal joint? Regarding this, areas related to determinism will be explored as determinism states that all events in the world are the result of some previous event, or events. Bringing� clarity to these questions is important, as is it has a direct bearing on how one will view miracles recorded in the Scriptures, and how far one will go in trusting God to meet one� s needs through prayer.
There is a multitude of instruments for measuring religiosity/spirituality. Many of these questionnaires are used or even were developed in the context of studies about the connection between religiosity/spirituality and health. Thus, it seems crucial to note that measures can focus on quite different components along a hypothetical path between stres-sors and health. We present an instructive model which helps to identify these different components and allows the categorization of instruments of religiosity/spirituality accord-ing to their primary measurement intention: intensity/centrality, resources, needs, coping, and quality of life/well-being. Furthermore, we point out possibilities as to how religiosity and spirituality can be differentiated. We argue that the distinction between religiosity and spirituality is important in countries with a more secular background where a growing number of people identify themselves as "spiritual, but not religious".
Integrating spirituality into mental health care, psychiatry and psychotherapy is still controversial, albeit a growing body of evidence is showing beneficial effects and a real need for such integration. In this review, past and recent research as well as evidence from the integrative concept of a Swiss clinic is summarized. Religious coping is highly prevalent among patients with psychiatric disorders. Surveys indicate that 70–80% use religious or spiritual beliefs and activities to cope with daily difficulties and frustrations. Religion may help patients to enhance emotional adjustment and to maintain hope, purpose and meaning. Patients emphasize that serving a purpose beyond one's self can make it possible to live with what might otherwise be unbearable. Programs successfully incorporating spirituality into clinical practice are described and discussed. Studies indicate that the outcome of psychotherapy in religious patients can be enhanced by integrating religious elements into the therapy protocol and that this can be successfully done by religious and non-religious therapists alike.
The argument of this paper is that the modern brain-consciousness debate has left out one important element: the question of a transpersonal or spirit-like element of consciousness. Thus the problem really is not a mind-body-problem or brain-consciousness problem, but a mind-body-spirit or brain-consciousness-soul problem. Looking at the history of the debate it can be seen that, explicitly or implicitly, this aspect has always been part of the philosophical debate. Most notably, this can be seen in the Aristotelian concept of the soul, which held that form and matter were both together necessary to constitute a unity. But on top of that, a Platonic strand of teaching existed in Aristotle, which was lost. This tradition stipulated an aspect of the soul, the active intellect, that was separate and separable. This idea has inspired other and later writers into postulating an immortal part of the soul. In the modern debate this tradition has been lost and was frequently amalgamated with dualist positions. Phenomenological descriptions of mystical experiences, as well as other unusual (or exceptional)mind-matter anomalies suggest that this aspect of the problem needs reconsideration. For this purpose a transcendental kind of monism is suggested which does not violate the consensus that only a monist description of the world is scientifically viable. Such a position would, in addition, provide the option to incorporate the transpersonal side of the debate.
Cassirer, Jung and Bultmann share at least one principle, namely their appreciation of the role played by myth in experiencing the language of faith. All three of the theorists advocate the reading of mythological texts against the backdrop of a mythological world view. By accentuating the existential and transformational value of myth, they underline the importance of myth for religion. However, they do not promote a positivistic interpretation of myth, which might lead to the rebirth of biblical fundamentalism. This article advanced the perspective that biblical texts, when read as myth, could open up spiritual experiences, even to post-modern readers.
Medicine often has side-effects or unintended consequences that are more harmful than the original disease. Medical anthropology in general and the illnessdisease distinction in particular has been introduced into historical Jesus research with the intent to protect it from medicocentrism and thus to offer ways of comprehending sickness and healing in the world of Jesus and his first followers without distorting these phenomena by imposing the biomedical framework onto the texts. In particular the illnessdisease distinction is used for making sense of healing accounts whilst claiming to cross the cultural gap. Based on an analysis of the illnessdisease distinction in medical anthropology and its use in historical Jesus research this article suggests that instead of protecting from ethnocentrism this distinction actually increases the risk of ethnocentrism and consequently distorts in many instances the healing accounts of the New Testament.
This essay explores recent developments in theorizing subjectivity, with a particular focus on medical and psychiatric anthropology. It suggests that studies of violence and humanitarian interventions, new medical technologies, and new modes of citizenship challenge older ways of writing about the subject and lived experience. The essay outlines four claims about the study of subjectivity – that ‘subjectivity’ denotes a set of issues quite different than classic studies of ‘self’ or ‘person’; that viewing subjectivity through the lens of the ‘postcolonial’ provides a language and analytic strategies valuable for addressing such issues; that attention to ‘disorders’, social as well as individual, is critical to the ethnography of subjectivity; and that such ethnography requires theory and methods that facilitate attending to that which is ‘unspeakable and unspoken’. The essay then provides three ethnographic vignettes from the author's work in Indonesia, using each to explore a domain central to the ethnography of subjectivity. First, it discusses the importance of the study of the genealogy of the modern subject and of distinctive patterns of modernity for anthropological research on subjectivity. Second, it outlines a particular perspective on the psychological subject. And, third, it addresses ‘the eruption of the political’, the ethnography of post‐conflict settings, and participation in intervention as critical sites for inquiry into subjectivity. The essay juxtaposes Cavell's philosophy of ‘the Ordinary’ with current psychoanalytic theories as approaches to bringing that which societies and individuals keep ‘hidden in plain view’ into the purview of writing on subjectivity.
Résumé
Le présent essai explore l'évolution récente de la théorisation de la subjectivité et se concentre en particulier sur l'anthropologie médicale et psychiatrique. Il suggère que les anciens modes de description du sujet et de l'expérience vécue ne sont plus adaptés aux études de la violence et des interventions humanitaires, des nouvelles technologies médicales et des nouvelles formes de citoyenneté. L'auteur met en lumière quatre propositions concernant l'étude de la subjectivité : « la subjectivité » désigne un ensemble de questions différentes de celles des études classiques du « soi » ou de « la personne » ; l'examen de la subjectivitéà travers une lorgnette « postcoloniale » crée un langage et des stratégies analytiques utiles pour aborder ces questions ; il est indispensable pour l'ethnographie de la subjectivité de s'intéresser aux « troubles », sociaux aussi bien qu'individuels; l'ethnographie a besoin d'une théorie et d'une méthodologie facilitant l'examen de ce qui est « indicible et non dit ». L'essai livre ensuite trois instantanés ethnographiques tirés du travail de terrain de l'auteur en Indonésie, en explorant par le biais de chacun des trois un domaine central de l'ethnographie de la subjectivité. Il aborde pour commencer l'importance de l'étude de la généalogie du sujet moderne et des schémas distinctifs de modernité dans la recherche anthropologique sur la subjectivité. Il met ensuite en lumière une approche particulière du sujet psychologique. Enfin, il s'intéresse à« l'éruption du politique », à l'ethnographie des contextes post‐conflictuels et à la participation à l'intervention comme autant de points cruciaux dans l'étude de la subjectivité. Cet essai superpose la philosophie de « l'Ordinaire » de Cavell aux théories psychanalytiques actuelles pour amener dans le champ de vision de l'écriture sur la subjectivité ce que les sociétés et les individus tiennent « caché au grand jour ».
A central concern for a psychology of culture is the question of how people come to commit themselves to ‘shared’ forms of understanding. Although the ‘shared’ or social nature of human understanding has received ample attention in different forms of cultural psychology, what is lacking is an account of the normative ‘force’ or compellingness of cultural forms. We argue that both phenomenology and social constructionism have failed to acknowledge the inherently normative dimension of social and cultural life. For an alternative grounding of cultural psychology we turn to the work of Merleau-Ponty. We show that at the end of his life Merleau-Ponty was working on a theory of meaning that acknowledges the normative dimension of our affective engagements in the world as well as the affective dimension of our normative engagements. We argue that this theory may be a powerful alternative for a social constructionist approach to culture.
The article presents a critical analysis of transpersonal psychology in regard to the absence of a transpersonal clinical theory. It examines connections of transpersonal psychology with modernism and postmodernism, and affirms phenomenology as a paradigmatic force and the epistemological tool necessary for the development of the foundational clinical category of the transpersonal self. The latter is juxtaposed with the concept of the states of consciousness in its practical applicability for clinical work. Cultural constructionism and feminist theory are suggested among the perspectives that should inform the development of the transpersonal self as a clinical category. Self is viewed as an internally interrelated system, capable of transformation after ego- transcendence and/or spiritual experience, as shown by phenomenological studies of the Prayer of the Heart. The article calls for the integration of those spiritual traditions positing the ontological validity of personhood, such as Sufism and Tantra, with transpersonal clinical theory.
Abstract The concept of habitus, popularized in the last two decades of the twentieth century especially by the work of Pierre Bourdieu and Norbert Elias, is frequently employed in the social and biosocial sciences. The concept ofhabitus seems to offer a fruitful way of dealing with somefunda mental problems in social theory today by providing a promising conceptual linkage between cultural, social, psychological and biological dimensions of reality. The task of this paper is to work towards a clearer and more systematic conception of habitus based on a systemic and mechanismic philosophy of science. The paper surveys the various forms in which habitus appears in the social world, presents a systematic account of the structures and effects of habitus, and sketches a dynamic model ofhow,habitus as process in biopsychosocial systems works. The illustrative case to be discussed is that of national habitus and homo nationisas a biopsychosocial system. ,2 The Habitus Process
This article seeks to demonstrate how to engage with television in an ecstatic mode. Toward that end, it undertakes an auto[erotic]ethnography of the author's television viewing practices. The conclusion reflects on the implications of viewing in this mode for the practice of criticism.
The author develops theoretical and partly tentative arguments on the state Of what is called religion with a focus on Europe. The concept of "religion" is complemented by a more basic and less biased notion such as "transcendence", as coined by the phenomenological sociology of Schzytz, Berger and Luckmann, a notion that starts from the trajectory of subjective experience and action. In the first part the author focuses on extreme yet quite diverse (western) "religious" movements that are somewhat dynamic, such as marked Christianity and alternative religiosity. Among other sociological features many of these movements lay great stress on subjective experiences of great transcendences (of a large variety of kinds). The actors' notions of spirituality nicely capture this phenomenological feature; moreover, spirituality also covers various sociological aspects, such as the individualistic orientation, the weak tendency to organization and its holistic function, that have also been identified by other researchers. Instead, however, of reducing spirituality to the rather extreme forms of alternative spirituality, the author argues that spirituality of the kind sketched here is disseminated into and communicated by the general culture in such a way as to dissolve the boundaries of religious and non-religious communication. Indeed, modern mediated and popular culture can be identified as a major locus for the distribution of what should be called (modern) "Popular religion". It is this form of religion that breaks down the boundaries between "privatized" and "public" religion. It is concluded that the dissolution of the boundaries between the private and public as well as between religiously marked and unmarked communication indicates a basic transformation of religion that demands a reconceptualization in terms of transcendence instead of the binary code sacred/profane.
Alterity is the phenomenological kernel of religion, and insofar as alterity is part of the structure of being-in-the-world, religion is an inevitable feature of human existence. This essay elaborates these ideas by juxtaposing traditional phenomenology of religion with contemporary theorizing about alterity. The argument moves from an opening reflection about the "origin" of religion and the presumed interiority of religious experience to a critique that modifies the phenomenologists' understanding of religion's object as a majestic and wholly "Other" with the notion of an intimate alterity grounded in embodiment. The intimate alterity of the gendered self as embodied otherness is illustrated in a series of ethnographic moments that pinpoint the elementary structure of alterity described by the term "écart." Applying these insights to contemporary events suggests that there is a sense in which political alterity is also a religious structure. © 2004 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved.
There is a long tradition in philosophy for claiming that selfhood is socially constructed and self-experience intersubjectively mediated. On many accounts, we consequently have to distinguish between being conscious or sentient and being a self. The requirements that must be met in order to qualify for the latter are higher. My aim in the following is to challenge this form of social constructivism by arguing that an account of self which disregards the fundamental structures and features of our experiential life is a non-starter, and that a correct description and account of the experiential dimension must do justice to the first-person perspective and to the primitive form of self-referentiality, mineness or for-me-ness that it entails. I then consider and discuss various objections to this account, in particular the view that an endorsement of such a minimal notion of self commits one to an outdated form of Cartesianism. In the final part of the paper, I argue that the self is so multifaceted a phenomenon that various complementary accounts must be integrated if we are to do justice to its complexity.
We are all social psychologists declare Tajfel and Fraser (1978) and, by way of explanation, they offer one of the most complete definitions of the discipline. It is the study of the various aspects of the interaction between individuals, between and within social groups, and between individuals and social systems, small or large, of which they are part (Tajfel and Fraser 1978, p. 22). Similar in their interests and passions, what, above all, distinguishes a professional social psychologist from an amateur or naive one is the method, or rather methods, used. The former follows strict research rules and procedures which are logical and systematic, explicitly sets out the hypotheses and tries to support them with references to scholarly shared criteria. The latter worries much less about the logical consistency of his or her convictions, develops naive, often post hoc, theories to explain events - especially when faced with the unexpected - and, being closely tied to pre-existing ideas, tends to confirm the underlying bias in a kind of vicious circle. There is, however, a third category. Because of their mastery and competence in treating psychosocial phenomena, authors of literary texts emerge as bearers of a type of knowledge which is different both from that of the scientist and that of the practical person, busy getting on with everyday life. Psychologists tend to appreciate this ability and often refer to the richness and depth shown by poets and writers when considering the psychic and relational aspects of life, or the familiarity with which they approach such extreme themes as life, love and death.
Breaking from the traditional mode of dissociation research, this study examines the experience of dissociation during positive situations. Thirty-three of ninety (36.7%)randomly selected undergraduate students reported positive dissociative experiences. In order of ranked frequency the experiences included sports, sexual encounters, prayer. contact with nature, anticipating good news, hearing good news, acting, hobbies, musical performances, and listening to music. Interestingly, low as well as high dissociators reported these types of experiences suggesting that one need not be highly dissociative in order to dissociate during a positive situation. A qualitative analysis of descriptions of positive dissociative experiences coincides precisely with Beere's perceptual theory of dissociation: dissoiation occurs when perception narrows during an intense situation of personal significance and, thus, blocks out the background.
This article advocates an extensive definition of self as the totality of what an organism is physically, biologically, psychologically, socially, and culturally. This definition departs from the narrower definition of self as self-representation – as culturally shaped constructs of the self that one applies to oneself – that is current in cultural anthropology today. The article goes on to elucidate recent neurobiological thinking – specifically, the model of the interpreter developed by Michael Gazzinaga and his colleagues, and Joseph LeDoux's idea of the synaptic self – in support of the extensive definition favored here. Finally, the article compares two divergent analyses by Katherine Ewing of the same case material, showing that the second analysis, that implicitly assumes an extensive definition of the self, provides a more satisfying explanation of the case than the earlier analysis, that is explicitly framed by a definition of the self as self-representation.
This paper provides a summary of Hjalmar Sundén's role-taking theory, and then applies the theory to two crises in Newman's life, both involving his relationships with Oxford mentors.
In At the Will of the Body, Arthur Frank told the story of his own illnesses, heart attack and cancer. That book ended by describing the existence of a "remission society," whose members all live with some form of illness or disability. The Wounded Storyteller is their collective portrait. Ill people are more than victims of disease or patients of medicine; they are wounded storytellers. People tell stories to make sense of their suffering; when they turn their diseases into stories, they find healing. Drawing on the work of authors such as Oliver Sacks, Anatole Broyard, Norman Cousins, and Audre Lorde, as well as from people he met during the years he spent among different illness groups, Frank recounts a stirring collection of illness stories, ranging from the well-knownâGilda Radner's battle with ovarian cancerâto the private testimonials of people with cancer, chronic fatigue syndrome, and disabilties. Their stories are more than accounts of personal suffering: they abound with moral choices and point to a social ethic. Frank identifies three basic narratives of illness in restitution, chaos, and quest. Restitution narratives anticipate getting well again and give prominence to the technology of cure. In chaos narratives, illness seems to stretch on forever, with no respite or redeeming insights. Quest narratives are about finding that insight as illness is transformed into a means for the ill person to become someone new.
Ministers, both ordained and lay, face a special challenge in caring for cancer patients and their families. It is important for seminarians and ministers to have not only a basic understanding of cancer but also of the myriad psychological and spiritual dynamics that cancer patients and their families present. Cancer presents severe stress not only for patients and families but also for ministers who care for them. It is vitally important for ministers to develop the competence and confidence necessary to face this challenge.
“The heart of the psychology of religion is the psychology of prayer, especially petitionary prayer…. Down through the centuries, believers have considered prayer the primary religious resource available to them for effecting a connection between themselves and God.”
Recent decades have been marked by a steadily increasing emphasis on neural determinants of behavior. Concerns with socio-cultural processes have simultaneously been diminished. Given the significance of this shift toward a cortical explanation of human behavior—in terms of both the direction of research in psychology and the implications of this research for social practices and policy—critical reflection is essential. In particular, when significant conceptual flaws are brought into focus, we find good reason to reconsider the significance of socio-cultural process. And, when we take into account major vistas of neuropsychological research, the conclusion becomes evident that not only is human action unintelligible in terms of neural activity, but the brain primarily functions in the service of cultural process. To be sure, cortical functioning may both enable and limit human activity. However, given the enormous variation in human conduct, and the dependency of such conduct on the generation of cultural meaning, the most promising conclusion, both for research and for societal practice, is to view the brain chiefly as an instrument for achieving socially originated ends. This is not to argue against inquiry into brain functioning, but to be more judicious about the domains of its utility, and critical in terms of what it offers for understanding human action.
My point of departure is Mills’ proposal that we should break with existing research paradigms in psychology. Traditional psychology is deterministic and assumes (efficient) causation; a second, ‘normative’, psychology is evolving with an emphasis on meaning and context. Narrative is a shared focus of normative psychology and literature. Normative psychology facilitates the achievement of predictability, as well as universals, in accounts of thought and action.
Patients in hospitals are often treated as objects without regard for their subjective sense of self. The following narrative is an account of the day-to-day experiences of one patient's recent hospital confinement. It is a demonstration of her loss of subjective freedom and her struggle to regain her dignity and sense of self through negotiated interactions. Main topics include patient indignities, loss of power and control, patient management work, and identity maintenance. The ethnomethodological perspective is invoked as an interpretive method of inquiry.
Although some theory suggests that it is impossible to increase one's subjective well-being (SWB), our ‘sustainable happiness model’ (Lyubomirsky, Sheldon, & Schkade, 2005) specifies conditions under which this may be accomplished. To illustrate the three classes of predictor in the model, we first review research on the demographic/circumstantial, temperament/personality, and intentional/experiential correlates of SWB. We then introduce the sustainable happiness model, which suggests that changing one's goals and activities in life is the best route to sustainable new SWB. However, the goals and activities must be of certain positive types, must fit one's personality and needs, must be practiced diligently and successfully, must be varied in their timing and enactment, and must provide a continued stream of fresh positive experiences. Research supporting the model is reviewed, including new research suggesting that happiness intervention effects are not just placebo effects.
In this article, the focus is on physicians’ own experience of illness or handicap. The researcher asked young physicians to tell their life stories in order to study narrations of career uncertainty. She was surprised by how many of the narrators included in their stories and narrated selves the theme of illness. In this article, the researcher takes her own feeling of wonder as her starting point. She had not expected to hear illness narratives, and now she listens to the thoughts and feelings that her own body and mind readily attach to a physician’s vulnerability. Those thoughts and feelings originate in the (professional) culture that values autonomy more than bodily ties. Wondering, on the other hand, is a feeling that cherishes the difference of the other person, and a feeling that attempts to suspend the customary conceptual flow. From the viewpoint of sexual difference, the difference between the healthy and the ill is analogous to the dichotomy between man and woman, masculine and feminine. In wondering, difference is accentuated while an attempt is made to overcome the dichotomy. The other’s story is not compared to the masculine or feminine norm but the question is, how does this woman or this man tell her or his story so that it is appropriate to her or his gender and the body that is inescapably vulnerable?
,The study of the relationship between religion and health has grown substantially in the past decade. There is little doubt that religion plays an important role in many people’s lives and that this has an impact on their health. The question is how researchers and clinicians can best evaluate the available information and how we can improve upon the current findings. In this essay we review the cur- rent knowledge,regarding religion and health and also critically re- view issues pertaining to methodology, findings, and interpretation ofthese studies. It is important to maintain,a rigorous perspective with regard to such studies and also to recognize inherent limitations and suggest constructive ways in which to advance this field of study. In the end, such an approach can provide new information that will improve our understanding of the overall relationship between reli- gion and health. Keywords:,health; methodology; religion; spirituality. The relationship between religion and health care has cycled between co-
Most sociological research assumes that social network composition shapes individual beliefs. Network theory and research
has not adequately considered that internalized cultural worldviews might affect network composition. Drawing on a synthetic,
dual-process theory of culture and two waves of nationally-representative panel data, this article shows that worldviews are
strong predictors of changes in network composition among U.S. youth. These effects are robust to the influence of other structural
factors, including prior network composition and behavioral homophily. By contrast, there is little evidence that networks
play a strong proximate role in shaping worldviews. This suggests that internalized cultural dispositions play an important
role in shaping the interpersonal environment and that the dynamic link between culture and social structure needs to be reconsidered.
Theological enquiry today has to take account not only of the texts people use to make meaning but also the practices by which people 'consume' texts (theological or otherwise). Linking with Stewart Hoover's research on media-consumption in religion, this article investigates how film-watching and cinema-going offer insights for contemporary theology. Affectivity, attentiveness, escape/entertainment, imagination and the sharing of experience are explored not merely as ways in which theology is like cinema-going, but as contexts in which the content of theology begins to develop.
Sociological assertions of religious vitality in Euro-American societies have developed a paradigm of spirituality in which, following earlier studies of the New Age, a distinction is drawn between external authority and self-authority. Methodologically and theoretically problematic, this paradigm diverts attention from people's social practices and interactions, especially in relation to multiple religious authorities. Drawing upon ethnographic fieldwork with an English religious network, and building upon the work of Pierre Bourdieu, the author considers situations in which multiple authorities tend to relativize each other. Conceptualizing this in terms of “nonformativeness”—the lack of authorities' ability formatively to shape religious identity, habitus, and competition over religious capital—allows a new understanding of individual secularization to emerge that questions assertions of vitality.
By means of a comparison between Bourdieu and Simmel, this article explores the fusion of theology and religion so as to give sociological expression to Kierkegaard's leap of faith. When detached from theology, religion services civil and secular needs in ways that enhance power and the right of the state to regulate the agenda of the politics of identity. In their dealings with religion, Bourdieu and Simmel present sociology with a choice of fusing the category of religion with theology or not. If the outcome is fusion, then the prospects of a religious reflexivity are enhanced, thus facilitating a leap of faith and the opening of a fruitful dialogue with theology, where sociology can develop new horizons for understandings of culture.
In recent years, sociologists have been much concerned with the nature of communication and its consequences, but little attention, even in the sociology of religion, has been given to the idea of communication between human society and other worlds. Divine communication is sociologically interesting as a communication puzzle: authentic religious communication tends to be ineffable and hence it requires considerable intellectual work by experts to translate it into the effable domain. The ineffability of religious inspiration is associated with hierarchical structures in societies with high illiteracy, because the untutored laity cannot readily interpret such messages expertly. The arrival of an information society and extensive literacy presupposes some degree of democratization and in particular an emphasis on — to conjure up a word strangely missing from modern English — effability. This transition from the hierarchical/ineffable to the horizontal/ effable implies a profound change in systems of authority in society and hence a transformation of the relationships between formal and popular religion.
This article addresses the question of what it is that visual depictions of illness portray, particularly images executed by or on behalf of people who have suffered serious illness. It takes up two lines of inquiry, both to do with the work that such pictures might perform. On the one hand, as works of art, there are questions about the form of signification in visual representations of this kind. On the other, as works of illness, there are issues concerning the role of image-making for sufferers bearing witness to their situation. The article examines the issue of what it is to look at pictures of bodies scarred by treatment for serious disease, and follows this into questions about what it is possible and necessary to show in order to render illness experience tangible. By examining, as exemplars, two particular images of sufferers, it is argued that such portrayals work not just through making visible certain objects for scrutiny, but by figuratively instantiating persons so as to produce a `vision of the non-visual'. In this way picturing illness finds its place in what might be called a politics of care.
The article explores the relationship between what we take to be objective or paramount reality and, roughly, its subjectification: a shadowy world, edging on the imaginative, which I call the scene. I suggest that the two ‘realities’ are mutually implicated; that their interplay affects understanding and consequent behavior; and that our present take on the ‘empirical’ has led us to ignore this dimension of experience. I argue that insofar as we respond to (as we create) these scenes that color our experiences of objective reality, they demand anthropological consideration. I stress the intersubjective nature of subjectivity itself and offer a preliminary attempt at understanding the complex interlocutory-the indexical-dramas occurring in ritual, for example, psychoanalysis and anthropological research, that constitute the scene.
There is increasing interest in the empirical effects of prayer on health. However, little attention has been paid to the theoretical causal mechanisms by which health may be affected by prayer. A critical examination of extant literature on the psychology of prayer was conducted to identify potential ways in which prayer may act to promote health. The review suggested that an array of prayer types exist ranging from prayers of attunement to petitionary prayers. Additionally, prayer may affect health by a variety of means including: (a) prayer may improve health because of the placebo effect; (b) individuals who pray may also engage in health-related behaviour; (c) prayer may help by diverting attention from health problems; (d) prayer may promote health through supernatural intervention by God; (e) prayer may activate latent energies, such as chi, which have not been empirically verified, but which nevertheless may be beneficial to health; and (f) prayer may result in a unity of consciousness which facilitates the transmission of healing between individuals. An agreement among researchers about the classification and measurement of prayer might result in an easier comparison of results across studies. Researchers should be aware of the many prayer types documented in the literature and should select a measure of prayer appropriate to their field of investigation. Additionally, researchers should give consideration to the possible causal mechanisms underlying the hypotheses they are investigating. Furthermore, if researchers offer some theoretically based argument, regarding prayer, for the hypotheses that they are testing, then results from studies involving prayer may be more meaningful. Having established the theoretical models of the ways in which prayer may promote better health, the challenge for psychology is to provide empirical evidence to confirm or disconfirm the alternate hypotheses.
Psychological research on spirituality need not start from scratch: the psychology of religion provides substantial knowledge and experience that can be drawn on when psychologists want to do research on spirituality. Spirituality, while certainly not identical with religion or religiosity, is a human phenomenon to which many methodological insights from the study of religion may be applied, although it is also a domain where many mistakes from the history of the psychology of religion are likely to be repeated. After presenting some thoughts on the conceptualization of spirituality, and reflecting on the type of psychology required to do research on spirituality, the paper points out some hidden agenda's in the psychologies of religion and spirituality. Focusing on and keeping in mind the specificity of spiritual conduct, the paper discusses a number of practical aspects of empirical research on spirituality.
Extending theories of distinctiveness motivation in identity (Breakwell, 1987; Brewer, 1991; Snyder & Fromkin, 1980), we discuss the precise role of distinctiveness in identity processes and the cross-cultural generality of the distinctiveness principle. We argue that (a) within Western cultures, distinctiveness is necessaryfor the construction of meaning within identity, and (b) the distinctiveness principle is not incompatible with non-Western cultural systems. We propose a distinction among three sources of distinctiveness: position, difference, and separateness, with different implications for identity and behavior. These sources coexist within cultures, on both individual and group levels of selfrepresentation, but they may be emphasized differently according to culture and context.
In this article it is argued that—in spite of contrary semantic and substantive criticisms that have been put forward—the crisis in psychology is a real problem facing the discipline. The crisis is discussed as a nexus of philosophical tensions, which divide individuals, departments, and psychological organizations, and which are therefore primarily responsible for the fragmentation of psychology. Some of the major existing analyses of the crisis are critiqued, and it is subsequently concluded that even the major analyses themselves perpetuate the crisis since they fail to direct unification efforts to the underlying philosophical tensions without at least approaching them with unbracketed a priori theoretical commitments and assumptions. The article concludes with a discussion of the difficulties facing those psychologists who take on the program of research necessary for resolving the crisis in psychology.
In this article, we contend that many of the problems delineated in this special issue on positive psychology stem from an unexamined philosophical premise—its ontology. The world of `ontology' is vast and somewhat ill defined, but here we mean simply assumptions of what is ultimately real and fundamental, especially regarding the self. We first clarify and compare two major ontologies of the self, one that we argue underlies and spawns problems for positive psychology and one that we will describe as a promising alternative for the project of positive psychology. We focus on three important features of this project: (1) commitment to an ideal of the `disinterested observer'; (2) emotional satisfaction as a key conception; and (3) the tendency to view human phenomena as decontextualized from culture, history, and even physical situations. These features will display both how one set of ontological premises has underlain mainstream positive psychology and how the alternative offers a fresh perspective that addresses many issues within the field.
The question of freedom is recurrent in the theory of habitus. In this paper I propose that the notion of freedom is an essential and necessary component for the coherence of the analyses which mobilize habitus both in terms of their theoretical articulation and in terms of their grounding in empirical reality. This argument can seem surprising considering that the theory of habitus has often been accused of being deterministic. Yet I show that, from an epistemological point of view, habitus theory is not deterministic. Bourdieu’s treatment of this concept implies at least three principles that exclude determinism: (1) the production of an infinite number of behaviors from a limited number of principles, (2) permanent mutation, and (3) the intensive and extensive limits of sociological understanding. After identifying and describing these principles, I show the reason for their incompatibility with a deterministic perspective and consider their implications for the corresponding model of action. I illustrate this analysis by a discussion of Loïc Wacquant’s carnal sociology of the pugilistic universe which reveals why it is essential to understand and explain the relation between habitus and freedom.