The Four Domains Model: Connecting Spirituality, Health and Well-Being

Abstract

At our core, or coeur, we humans are spiritual beings. Spirituality can be viewed in a variety of ways from a traditional understanding of spirituality as an expression of religiosity, in search of the sacred, through to a humanistic view of spirituality devoid of religion. Health is also multi-faceted, with increasing evidence reporting the relationship of spirituality with physical, mental, emotional, social and vocational well-being. This paper presents spiritual health as a, if not THE, fundamental dimension of people"s overall health and well-being, permeating and integrating all the other dimensions of health. Spiritual health is a dynamic state of being, reflected in the quality of relationships that people have in up to four domains of spiritual well-being: Personal domain where a person intra-relates with self; Communal domain, with in-depth inter-personal relationships; Environmental domain, connecting with nature; Transcendental domain, relating to some-thing or some-One beyond the human level. The Four Domains Model of Spiritual Health and Well-Being embraces all extant world-views from the ardently religious to the atheistic rationalist.

Spiritual well-being and hope in the preoperative period of cardiac surgery

“…People perennially present spiritual needs related to transcendence and satisfaction of a growth, whose accomplishment promotes hope, well-being, sociability and encounter with peace and meanings for life (4)(5)(6) . Regarding the studied sample, existential well-being, related to crises experienced during the period, the pursuit for meaning and to inner questioning about the whys of every situation, was significantly lower than the religious well-being.…”

“…It can be evaluated in four main domains: relationship with the self (personal domain), others (communal domain), environment/nature (environmental domain) and other transcendent/divinity (transcendental domain) (6) .…”

Religiosity, Spirituality, and Mental Health in Portugal: A call for a conceptualisation, relationship, and guidelines for integration (a theoretical review)

“…As a matter of fact, religion and spirituality as concepts do overlap, and in some regards might also be similar (Richards & Bergin, 2005;Fisher, 2011;Hadzic, 2011;Koenig et al, 2012). However, one must also acknowledge they are not identical (Zinnbauer, et al, 1999) and for that reason conceptualisations that focus or are narrowed to certain aspects of religion or spirituality might not be appropriate (Saucier & Skrzypińska, 2006;Nelson, 2009).…”

Measuring the Contribution of Roman Catholic Secondary Schools to Students' Religious, Personal and Social Values

“…In the second analysis, Francis and Robbins (2005) examined the proile of year-9 and year-10 students attending Catholic secondary schools alongside the proile of students attending state-maintained schools without a religious foundation, speciically in terms of John Fisher's (1998Fisher's ( , 2000Fisher's ( , 2001Fisher's ( , 2004Fisher's ( , 2011 model of the four domains of spiritual health: personal domain, communal domain, environmental domain, and transcendental domain.…”