Spirituality and mental health

Abstract: Psychology is a basic science whose object of study is the human behaviour and conduct at a motor level (what a person is capable of doing), at an emotional level (what a person feels) and at a cognitive level (what a person thinks) in addition to other complex human attributes or constructs such as consciousness, experience, personality, intelligence or mind. It is also the object of psychology to understand or explain how mental activity is similar and how it differs between individuals, generating individual differences based on their age, sex or other biological or social conditions (Fernández-Ballesteros, 2002), especially affecting the relations to self and others and the world. In social work, then, the mental condition of clients (and, additionally, in another perspective, of the social worker) is part of the object of social work: preventing and coping with social problems and promoting social development.
Everything that has been said so far implies that psychology first seeks to describe mental activities by manifold means of empirical perception and inquiry which it then seeks to explain or understand by systematizing reflection (cf. Ch. I.3: Method); at a practical level, psychology also strives to improve mental functioning on the basis of the acquired knowledge. Empirically described differences show a range of many varieties with statistical probabilities; in this sense, the question of psychopathology can also be considered in terms of statistical deviations from what is considered the “normal” range of functioning. The American Psychiatric Association (2013) therefore calls its official and normative compendium of psychiatric disorders “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders”. At present, its 5th edition (“DSM-5TM”) is in force, as an expression of the ongoing process of research and acquired scientific knowledge in mental disorders. In other words, the functionalities that are the object of psychology are susceptible to pathology or becoming ill, being then the object of study of Psychopathology at a phenomenological level and of Psychiatry at a medical and therapeutic level, in addition.
To speak of the psychic or mental dimension of the person is to consider neurological, affective, cognitive, executive or metacognitive aspects (which include the kind or quality of social relationships or social functioning). Regarding the affective aspects, they are constituted by the state of mind, impulses, and emotions that can give rise to more complex elaborations such as self-esteem or empathy. Cognitive aspects are also taken into account, from the most basic ones, such as attention, sensation and memory, to even the most elaborate and superior ones, such as language, that make information management possible, and that give rise to more complex elaborations such as self-concept or attributions; executive and metapsychological. The influential executive aspects in the planning or selection of strategies or regulation of acts that would condition self-control or interaction must be taken into account. At the metacognitive level, there are those aspects that completely transcend the previous ones, placing themselves in the spiritual sphere, such as thought or the ability to love. Thinking and loving implicitly introduce freedom, being the characteristics that differentiate the human person from other animals, which also have psychic functionalities.
At this level, spirituality in relation to quality of life and as a protector of physical and mental health acts as a psychosocial resource in emotional well-being and promotes aspects such as resilience, positive coping, or social support, offering guidelines, guides or strategies for facing the suffering of mental illness without alteration of consciousness (González-Celis & Gómez-Benito, 2013). It could be said that it is a unique, specific, and personal transcendent experience. It can be identified with the personal search for meaning and purpose in life (cf. Frankl, 1945). Hence its link with processes such as coping or resilience in the context of stressful or problematic situations and confirmed in mental illnesses such as: depression, suicide, anxiety, psychosis, and substance abuse (Koenig, 2009; Ronneberg et al., 2016) and also in physical illnesses (Cohen & Koenig, 2003; Rivera-Hernandez, 2016).
Spirituality – like religions in general – can be affected by mental disorders, too, and can also contribute to the symptoms and course of the illness in a negative way (Griffith, 2010). This reality has been one of the factors and challenges – apart from ideological ones – in clinical practice as well as in the development of psychotherapies, e.g. in the context of obsessive-compulsive disorders (Baumann, 2007), which marginalized the study and the recognition of the religious and spiritual needs, practices, and resources of patients in mental health (Baumann, 2012).
The topics that will be developed throughout this chapter are: Soul - body or mind - brain problem. Spirit and freedom; health and disease vs normality and pathology (Conditioners of Mental Health and Mental health and life project); mental health (guilt, pain and depression; anguish and anxiety; meaning of life, existential emptiness and hopelessness and an excursus: Suicide, a human and enigmatic (f)act); legal problems that may arise in the course of the disease; spirituality and work with people with mental health problems; need for specialized training

Angaben zum Objekt

• Standort: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Frankfurt am Main
• Umfang: Online-Ressource
• Sprache: Englisch

Klassifikation und Themen

• Schlagwort: Spiritualität ; Psychische Gesundheit ; Psychologie ; Sozialarbeit

Beteiligte, Orts- und Zeitangaben

• Ereignis: Veröffentlichung
• (wo): Freiburg
• (wer): Universität
• (wann): 2022
• Urheber: Moya-Faz, Francisco José ; Baumann, Klaus

Weitere Informationen

• DOI: 10.6094/UNIFR/221429
• URN: urn:nbn:de:bsz:25-freidok-2214292
• Rechteinformation: Kein Open Access; Der Zugriff auf das Objekt ist unbeschränkt möglich.
• Letzte Aktualisierung: 15.08.2025, 07:37 MESZ