Why psychology must consider spirituality

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Why psychology must consider spirituality

• UWS PASS Meeting 6 March 2008
• Maureen Miner

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Definition of psychology

• Science of human behaviour
• But human behaviour is not unitary
• Human is also unclear
• E.g., substance rationality?
• E.g., mode of existence agency?
• Since the definition of psychology is open we
  should not rule out spirituality as relevant to
  psychology

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Definition of spirituality

• No agreed definition
• Themes relate to
• Transcendence
• Connectedness
• To inner self, world, God/gods what is
  considered sacred
• Personal experience

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Point 1 Integrity

• Psychology must consider spirituality for its own
  integrity. It should be consistent with its
  historical roots where spirituality is
  emphasized.

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Example Ancient Greece

• Earth and body are transitory and unsettled but
  heaven and soul are imperishable and consistent
• Morality (the attempt to align mans soul with
  the world-soul) is founded on the order of the
  cosmos.

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Example early Judaism

• In the wisdom literature there is acute
  understanding of human behaviour, motivation,
  emotion, personality and learning
• These accounts depicted humans as moral,
  relational beings who could only flourish when in
  a proper relationship with God.

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Point 2. Psychologys assumptions about
flourishing are spiritual

• Psychology must consider spirituality because
  psychological theories explicitly or implicitly
  assert what is human flourishing.
• Psychology is not value free
• Psychologys ultimate values are spiritual

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Example 1

• Humanistic theories of personality assume what is
  the mature self
• Self-actualisation (Maslow)
• The fully functioning person (Rogers)
• The mature personality (Allport)
• These theories assume self-transcendence and
  connectedness

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Example 2

• Abnormal psychology
• Accounts of personality disorders refer to
  unhelpful ways of relating to others
• These accounts include moral and spiritual
  concepts
• They relate to connectedness

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Example 3

• Developmental psychology
• Assumptions about the goal of human development
  as integrity inner connectedness
• Assumptions about reaching integrity include
  religious/spiritual processes and values

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Example 3 illustration

• I claim for the life cycle a generational
  principle which would tend to perpetuate a series
  of vital virtues from hope in infancy to wisdom
  in old age
• Erikson (1968, p.233). Identity, Youth and
  Crisis. NY Norton.

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Conclusion Point 2

• If psychological explanations of personality,
  abnormality and development implicitly or
  explicitly rely on spiritual concepts, then it is
  very important that psychologists carefully
  examine those spiritual goals and processes as
  spiritual.

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Point 3. Reductionism

• Psychology must consider spirituality if it is to
  avoid reductionism
• Hard psychology holds human behaviour can be
  explained by biology genetics and brain
  processes
• But hard psychology ignores human selfhood and
  human volition

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The compelling force of human experience

• Humans experience volition, and
• Beauty
• Love
• God

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Conclusion

• If psychology is to be complete it must embrace
  the whole of psychology. This means it must
• a) acknowledge all of human experience
• b) own up to implicit spiritual themes in its
  goals and assumptions about human flourishing
• c) recognize its historical roots that
  emphasised humans as spiritual beings.