Free Integrating Psychology and Spirituality for Healing Essay Sample

Thinking about it, everyone goes through certain challenges in life that would make them feel weak socially, spiritually, emotionally, or even physically. These are the feelings that make people feel stressed or depressed in most cases, hence forcing them to seek medical or rather clinical intervention. In fact, it is actually the reason why you would find antidepressants and relaxant drugs in the cabinets of various home. A closer look at these problems reveals that the roots of their causes is actually spiritual or psychological In that effect, Sharon Mijare illuminates psychology and spirituality in her book, explaining how blending concepts of the two fields can be used to ‘heal’ anxiety, stress, depression, and emotional breakdowns amongst other  spiritual and psychologically caused problems. She says that historically, these conditions have been controlled and even healed through prayer, meditation, controlled breathing, and other timeless disciplines (2003). Moreover, she explains that through spirituality, from an intensive study of Christianity, Buddhism, Sufism, Goddess tradition, Judaism, Yoga, Hinduism, and Taoism amongst other religions, when combined with ancient psychological tactics these problems can be healed in a better way as compared to the use of medical prescriptions. Nonetheless, it is a less costly measure and has no side effects as compared to its alternatives.

Additionally, after a careful read of the introduction to Modern Psychology and Ancient Wisdom by Mijares, it is found that psychology and religion have finally come to terms. She says that “psychology is a science that addresses mental, emotional, somatic, and relational dynamics, while spirituality illuminates the inherent mystery of life itself.” In other words, she means that we need to listen to spiritual leaders in order to understand how to heal and to advance psychological and spiritual development (Mirajes, 2003). However, what raises questions is how someone is supposed to understand spirituality when it comes in different shapes from different religions. Christianity has its intuition, which is somehow different from Islamic beliefs and so is Buddhism and other religions. As a result, there is a challenge that none of these religions and their teachings are inherently superior to the other, and therefore there is a difficulty in trying to deal with their differences in order to reach the point of agreement that certain concepts, teachings and beliefs are the best for spiritual nourishment and development as compared to others.

Nonetheless, while viewing Richard Harvey’s conference videos, the first point that is very interesting is about ‘what we need to flower. In this video, he explains that during the process of psychospiritual development, someone needs to surround himself or herself with the right people and in the right environment in order to facilitate and enhance spiritual growth. This is a point where someone is trying to change from old habits and therefore needs to be with a mentor figure, which is someone who knows them so well and can give relevant guidance and feedback on how much progress the person is making.

Secondly, and very important point in Harvey’s conference videos is the fact that human beings fundamentally have a spiritual nature and therefore recognize that most of their problems have  a spiritual origin or nature. In that effect, in order to find solutions to these problems, an individual needs to get closely in touch with his or her spiritual nature as he explains in ‘An Introduction to Therapy and Spirituality’. What he tries to say in this video, is essentially the fact that we have a spiritual background that goes deeper that what appears on the outside. Therefore, if someone is seeking a solution to their problems then spirituality is the ultimate path that they have to take. Additionally, to fortify these intuitions towards a better way to solve various problems in the lives of human beings Miller explains that in order to experience effective spiritual healings, one must embrace the concepts of acceptance, forgiveness, hope, values, and control (1999). Having mastered these concepts and applied them to their lives, individuals gains a better understanding of their environment and they are able to make the right choices with their spiritual nature in mind and how their decisions would affect their state of living.

 

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