Introduction to the Special Issue: Spirituality and Psychology, Emerging Perspectives

Where are we, and where should we go? An introduction to Davis et al., “Sixty years of studying the sacred: Auditing and advancing the psychology of religion and spirituality”.

“…Emerging from that visit was a 2018 special issue on spirituality in Psychological Studies , a journal sponsored by the National Academy of Psychology in India, one of the main organizations for Indian psychologists. Two Indian psychologists coedited that issue with Oman et al (2018), an issue featuring articles coauthored by Indian psychologists (e.g., Kristeller & Jordan, 2018; Ladd et al, 2018; Oman & Paranjpe, 2018). More recently, Ladd wrote the introductory article to the inaugural issue of the first Japanese psychology of religion journal (Ladd, 2023), and Ladd and Mike Nielsen have hosted postdoctoral fellows from Turkey and Pakistan.…”

Locating the sacred within the therapeutic landscape: Influence of therapists’ religious and spiritual beliefs on psychotherapeutic practice.

“…Over the last few decades, there has been a growing movement within the larger discipline of psychology, and within the mental health profession, to explore and understand the role of religion and spirituality in well-being and mental health (Duggal & Basu, 2012; Oman et al, 2018; Sharma et al, 2009). Considering that religious and spiritual beliefs contribute significantly to aspects of cultural identity, as well as individual world-view and perspectives (Bilgrave & Deluty, 1998), there is an increasing focus on how religious and spiritual beliefs of clients and psychotherapists enter into psychotherapy (Passmore, 2003).…”

Development and Psychometric Properties of a Scale of Non-Theistic Spirituality: Contributions of Spirituality to the Locus of Control

“…In spite of this, the spirituality of atheists has been a largely neglected subject and little discussed (Streib & Klein, 2013), both at the level of the conceptualization as well as at the level of psychometric development. This neglect can be partly explained by the fact that the current psychometric measures available are mostly based on models of theistic spirituality (c.f., Kapuscinski & Masters, 2010), while there is a tendency to affirm the integration of a psychology of spirituality and religion (e.g., Oman, 2015;Pargament et al, 2013). Taking this into consideration, the assessment of "atheistic spirituality" in psychological investigations will best be carried out using a model that does not discriminate between the spirituality of atheists and that of believers -the non-theistic model.…”

“…However, there is no agreement on the definition of spirituality, especially to its relationship with religiosity. To many it is widely accepted that spirituality is transversal to religiosity and that there is a conceptual dependence between the two constructs (Koenig, 2009;Oman, 2015;Pargament, 2013). In other hand, this view has been disputed by some authors who advocated the conceptual distinction of the spiritual domain from the religious one (Hay & Socha, 2005;Saucier & Skrzypinska, 2006;Skrzypinska, 2014).…”