“Broken Together”: Spirituality and Religion as Coping Strategies for Couples Dealing with the Death of a Child: A Literature Review with Clinical Implications

Abstract

The death of a child is an event that can fall into the category of uncontrollable life events, testing the limits of the ability to control of bereaved parents. The literature reviewed showed that religious/spiritual coping is a unique way of coping and may be particularly important for couples who have lost a child. When assessing the couples' coping strategies, marital therapists would be wise to look for religious/spiritual mechanisms that can be employed in the therapeutic process. Furthermore, the reviewers propose Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy (Johnson, 2004, The practice of emotionally focused couple therapy: Creating connection, Routledge, New York) as well suited for helping couples grieving the death of their child.

Religion and Labor Market Performance: Is It What You Believe or How Much?

“…While this can be considered unlikely, I hedge against this possibility by using the second indicator of contingency, Experience of death, which can hardly be argued to be driven by religious interpretation. Moreover, previous research suggests that experience of death constitutes a contingency experience that can contribute to increased religiosity (as, for example, shown by Zapata 2018) and that religion is used to cope with experiences of death in close social proximity (Ungureanu and Sandberg 2010). In Section 6.2, I scrutinize the validity of the exclusion restriction for our case by evaluating potential alternative pathways from contingency experience to labor market performance in the data.…”

Systemic Work With a Couple Facing Narcissism

“…Walsh (2009) noted that spirituality is still an important consideration in our clients’ lives. When spiritual beliefs are a part of how a couple is creating meaning in their relationship, it often influences every aspect of their life (Mahoney, 2010; Pargament, 2009; Ungureanu & Sandberg, 2010). Therapists should take extra care around the issues of spirituality as Watkins van Asselt and Baldo Senstock (2009) found that the more aware therapists were spiritually, the greater their ability to recognize a client’s spiritual concerns and integrate them into the treatment.…”

Critique of the Religion and Spirituality Discourse in Family Articles

“…Beliefs are also externally established and provide standards by which adherents are encouraged to live. According to Nedumaruthumchalil (), “religion is a human activity and not an activity of the Supreme Being” (p. 16), and Walsh () described religion as an “organized belief system that includes shared, institutionalized moral values” (as cited in Ungureanu & Sandberg, , p. 303). By contrast, spirituality is described as individual, universal and innate, with an emphasis on the subjective feeling of connectedness to a higher power rather than adherence to specific codes or standards.…”