Medicine for the Spirit: Religious Coping in Individuals with Medical Conditions
Journal Title: Religions - Year 2010, Vol 1, Issue 1
Abstract
Religious coping now represents a key variable of interest in research on health outcomes, not only because many individuals turn to their faith in times of illness, but also because studies have frequently found that religious coping is associated with desirable health outcomes. The purpose of this article is to familiarize readers with recent investigations of religious coping in samples with medical conditions. The present article will begin by describing a conceptual model of religious coping. The article will then provide data on the prevalence of religious coping in a range of samples. After presenting findings that illustrate the general relationship between religious coping and health outcomes, the article will review more specific pathways through which religious coping is thought to impact health. These pathways include shaping individuals’ active coping with health problems, influencing patients’ emotional responses to illness, fostering social support, and facilitating meaning making. This article will also address the darker side of religious coping, describing forms of coping that are linked to negative outcomes. Examples of religious coping interventions will also be reviewed. Finally, we will close with suggestions for future work in this important field of research.
Authors and Affiliations
Jeremy P. Cummings and Kenneth I. Pargament
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP25177
- DOI https://doi.org/10.3390/rel1010028
- Views 553
- Downloads 28
Remembering the Neighborhood: Church, Disability, and Religious Memory
This article focuses on rituals of community life within a North American church in which many of the congregants live with psychiatric disabilities and whose participation in religious life is affected by their experi...
The Spiritual Approach to Group Psychotherapy Treatment of Psychotraumatized Persons in Post-War Bosnia and Herzegovina
Psychological trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) may have an intensive negative impact on a patient‟s spiritual beliefs or his/her belief in God; this effect may diminish the social and professional skill...
Augustine’s De Musica in the 21st Century Music Classroom
Augustine’s De musica is all that remains of his ambitious plan to write a cycle of works describing each of the liberal arts in terms of Christian faith and is actually unfinished; whereas the six books extant today p...
Pratyabhijña Apoha Theory, Shannon–Weaver ¯ Information, Saussurean Structure, and Peircean Interpretant Agency
This paper builds upon my earlier studies in interpreting interculturally how the Kashmiri nondual Saiva thinkers Upaladeva (c. 900–950 CE) and Abhinavagupta (c. 950–1020 CE) in their ´ Pratyabhijña philosophical theol...
Comparative Framework for Understanding Jewish and Christian Violent Fundamentalism
Although most scholars agree that in the last couple of decades, religious fundamentalism has become the dominant ideological feature in the landscape of modern terrorism, many prefer to ignore the fact that this is no...