Pain, Spirituality, and Meaning Making: What Can We Learn from the Literature?
Journal Title: Religions - Year 2011, Vol 2, Issue 1
Abstract
Religion and spirituality are two methods of meaning making that impact a person’s ability to cope, tolerate, and accept disease and pain. The biopsychosocialspiritual model includes the human spirit’s drive toward meaning-making along with personality, mental health, age, sex, social relationships, and reactions to stress. In this review, studies focusing on religion’s and spirituality’s effect upon pain in relationship to physical and mental health, spiritual practices, and the placebo response are examined. The findings suggest that people who are self efficacious and more religiously and spiritually open to seeking a connection to a meaningful spiritual practice and/or the transcendent are more able to tolerate pain.
Authors and Affiliations
Carol J. Lysne and Amy B. Wachholtz
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP25183
- DOI https://doi.org/10.3390/rel2010001
- Views 494
- Downloads 25
Elvis’ Gospel Music: Between the Secular and the Spiritual?
Do fans sanctify their heroes? In the past, I have argued that Elvis fandom is not a neo-religious practice but that attention to a modified version of Durkheim’s theory of religion can, nevertheless, help to explain i...
The Idea of a Highest Divine Principle—Founding Reason and Spirituality. A Necessary Concept of a Comparative Philosophy?
By reference to the Platonic, Aristotelian, and Neo-Platonic philosophical traditions (and then to German Idealism, including Husserl and Heidegger), I will indicate the way in which the concept of reason—on the one si...
A Systematic Review of Studies Using the Brief COPE: Religious Coping in Factor Analyses
Religion is generally recognized as a major resource for dealing with stressful events, but its relationship with secular coping strategies continues to be debated. The present article provides a systematic review of t...
Augustine’s Introduction to Political Philosophy: Teaching De Libero Arbitrio, Book I
Book I of Augustine’s work On Free Choice (De Libero Arbitrio) offers a helpful introduction to some of the most important themes of political philosophy. The paper makes a case for teaching this text in introductory c...
The Ground Zero Mosque Controversy: Implications for American Islam
The controversy surrounding the “ground zero mosque” is part of a larger debate about the place of Islam in U.S. public space. The controversy also reveals the ways in which the boundaries of American identity continue...