Integrating Spirituality Into Treatment: Resources for Practitioners

Book Overview

Psychology was originally concerned with mind, body and spirit. This volume re-establishes the importance of spirituality while integrating it into the mainstream of sound psychological practice.... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1557985812
• ISBN13: 9781557985811
• Release Date: January 1999
• Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
• Length: 293 Pages
• Weight: 2.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 7.1" x 10.4"

Customer Reviews

Not an easy read

This book is for folks who are serious about this subject. It is very academic and has comprehensive references. I agree with the editor that it's about time the psychological community acknowledged clients' spirituality and integrated it into treatment. This is tough to do without imposing one's own beliefs (or lack thereof) on the client, and I think this book goes a ways toward helping the practitioner understand what's out there and how to relate to it. The editor is a Christian, but eastern spirituality is included in the book, too, as is the 12-step program. The chapters are written by people with experience in the various facets of spirituality. One problem that I see is that the editing is sloppy. For instance the word "for" might appear when "or" is really what's meant. It's distracting and makes the read take longer as one has to keep going back over the text for clarification.

Spirituality in psychology

I have been using this book in the psychology 495 course (Spirituality and Mental Health) and have found this book invaluable. It shows how really necesary the spirituality of a person is to their mental health and should not be ignored as has been tried in the past. The whole person needs to be treated and part of that whole is the spiritual. Not religious or their religion but their spirituality.

Critical Ph.D. Review: Integrating Spirit. into Treatment

Abstract The following document will critically review the text Integrating Spirituality into Treatment: Research for Practitioners, edited by William R. Miller. To provide a review with breadth-within the limited size of this critique-one article from each of the text's four sections is investigated. The articles were found to provide a comprehensive synthesis of current professional research, viable hypotheses, and recommendations for further study. Critical review and disagreement with some definitions and applications are noted in this document. A Critical Review of the Text Integrating Spirituality into Treatment: Research for Practitioners Spirituality in psychotherapeutic treatment is a topic that has gained attention in professional research over the last 15 years. The text being critically reviewed covers many of the current issues of importance, synthesizing recent professional research, and providing hypotheses and recommendations for further study. PART I: SPIRITUALITY AND TREATMENT Spirituality and Health The first chapter of the text discusses the topic of spirituality in health. Both terms-spirituality and health-are first defined and then the text addresses how one may affect the other in clinical practice. Health In approaching a definition of health, the author refers to the common greeting "how are you," and reflects on how the question could be interpreted as an opening to a complex dialog regarding one's holistic wellbeing. In sum, it is proposed that health can be conceptualized though three vantage points: suffering (or the absence of suffering), function (i.e. the adaptive cognitive function of an individual, and biological operation), and coherence (i.e. inner-peace, or optimism). In an analysis of this conceptualization, it is possible that health is completely a constructivist phenomenon. With this, the first and the third criteria proposed-suffering and coherence-are equivalent and therefore redundant. Suffering, in its essence, is the antithesis of inner-peace. The idea of one suffering and being at peace at the same time is a logical impossibility unless one is compartmentalizing his/her suffering to one aspect of his/her experience and inner-peace to another. For example, one can be suffering from depression and have inner-peace in regards to their perceived spiritual salvation. It is impossible however, for one to be suffering over depression, and have inner-peace in that aspect of their health, for to do so would be to lack depressive mood. In regards to the category of function, this criterion too seems problematic for it is odd to state that an individual paralyzed from the waist down is in poor health, though this lack of function is much more extreme than the influenza virus, a condition that often provokes the label of illness. Spirituality According to the text spirituality, like health, is multidimensional: even defined as the multidimensional space in which one can be located. It is said tha

Written for psychologists

If you are seeking to integrate spirituality into patient care in a hospital, medical practice, or ambulatory surgery center -- you should seek other works. Psychologists, psychotherapists, behavioral therapists and ministers or chaplains who have an ongoing relationship with patients (e.g. chronic illnesses) will find this book useful and important. Chapters on: Spirituality and Health, Historical Context, Assessing Spirituality, Mindfulness and Meditation, Prayer, Spirituality and the 12-step Programs, Values Spirituality and Psychotherapy, Behavioral Approaches to Enhance Spirituality, Spiritual Surrender: A Paradoxical Path to Control, Acceptance and Forgiveness, Evoking Hope, Serenity and Diversity Training in Spiritual and Religious Issues. The only critique is the absence of an instrument to assess spirituality (or even guidance for the reader on which existing assessments are the best in practice).