Spirituality

One of my graduate students told me she had gone for a walk on the beach in the late afternoon. As the sun was setting, she climbed onto a boulder at the water's edge. Gazing out to sea, she felt herself slowly becoming one with nature--with the sun descending toward the horizon, the waves crashing at her feet, the pastel colors that streaked the western sky. She said, "In that moment I felt eternity. I knew these things had gone on for millions of years before I came and that they would go on for millions of years after I'm gone. It felt good to be alive, to be part of all this. I was deeply moved and began to cry."

Contemplation, meditation, prayer, rituals and other spiritual practices have the power to release the "life force" in the deepest levels of the human psyche, levels that secular interventions cannot reach. Indeed, new evidence shows that religious and spiritual interventions can help when everything else has failed.

I encourage clients and students to first figure out what moves them deeply--whether it's Beethoven, Garth Brooks or the Grateful Dead, a hike in the mountains, or a day in an art gallery. Then, I help them design a regular, structured program to incorporate these activities into their life.

Studies show that most Americans want spirituality, but perhaps not in religious form. Researcher Wade Clark Roof, Ph.D., from the University of California at Santa Barbara, found that in the 1960s and 1970s baby boomers dropped out of organized religion in large numbers: 84% of Jews, 69% of mainline Protestants, 61% of conservative Protestants and 67% of Catholics.

Many left church and synagogue not because they had lost interest in spirituality, but because organized religion was not meeting their spiritual needs. In the 1990s and as we approach the millennium, it is obvious that Americans are becoming more expressively spiritual.

National polls show that 9 out of 10 Americans believe in God and consider religion important in their lives.

Spirituality is the fastest growing--one of the only growing--sector of the publishing industry, with literally millions buying books on the theme. Television programs such as Bill Moyers' "Genesis: a Living Conversation" and Hugh Hewitt's "Searching for God in America" have attracted large audiences. Newspapers and national magazines, including Newsweek, Time and the New York Times Magazine publish stories on "Faith and Healing," "Science, God, and Man" and "Choosing My Religion."

But this rekindling of interest is not only a return to traditional religion. An estimated 32 million baby boomers remain unaffiliated today, turning instead to Eastern practices, new age philosophies, Twelve Step programs, Greek mythology, Jungian psychology, shamanic practices, massage, yoga and a host of other traditions and practices. Many find spiritual fulfillment in music, poetry, literature, art, nature and intimate relationships.

The trend toward alternative forms of spirituality figures prominently on the spiritual landscape of America. More and more Americans are finding in spirituality what they're looking for in therapy--healing techniques and new inspiration.

As spirituality spreads, psychology can't decide to love it or leave it alone.

Back when it was a new science, psychology tried to distance itself from theological explanations of behavior and to discover its own truths through scientific inquiry Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, even declared religion to be nothing but a form of pathology--an obsessional neurosis that grew out of feelings of infantile helplessness.

Mental health professionals have learned from their own clinical experience that Freud was at least partly right--religion can be neurotic. Even those who are sympathetic to religion are reluctant to give it wholehearted approval. Many feel more comfortable referring clients struggling with these issues to a priest, pastor or rabbi.

BUT SOME OF THE MOST RESPECTED INDIVIDUals in the history of psychology--William James, Gordon Allport, Erich Fromm, Viktor Frankl, Abraham Maslow and Rollo May--have made spirituality a major focus of their work. And Carl Jung went so far as to say that spirituality was such an essential ingredient in psychological health that he could heal only those middle-age people who embraced a spiritual or religious perspective toward life.

So like their forefathers, psychologists today are not unified on their attitude toward religion. But they confirm that it plays some sort of role in their patients' mental health.