PSYCHOLOGY and SPIRITUALITY: relationship, difference and benefits

There are some existential questions, such as the origin of the universe, that of life, that of consciousness and if there is life after death, which worry a large number of people and for which we still do not have a proven and validated answer empirically. The need to eliminate this concern and the suspicion that they provoke impel these people to search for answers, either through science or spiritualistic metaphysics. Why does man need to find answers? How can psychology and spirituality help us?

In this Psychology-Online article we will talk about the relationship between psychology and spirituality, their differences and similarities. We will also expose the benefits of spiritual intelligence and how to work it.

Index

1. Science and spirituality
2. Relationship between psychology and spirituality
3. Why do humans need answers?
4. Benefits of spirituality and psychology
5. How to build your own model of spirituality
6. Spiritual intelligence

The scientist stance it relies on scientific knowledge and theories and chance as an explanation of these issues. For his followers, the properties of matter and the laws of nature are sufficient to explain the mechanics of the cosmos (although there are obvious facts that they cannot explain). On the other hand, the metaphysical tradition is expressed through the spirituality, understood as the set of beliefs and practices based on the absolute conviction that there is a non-material dimension of life, helping the person to find answers to what cannot be explained through science and reason. It implies the knowledge and acceptance of the immaterial essence of oneself.

Spirituality is often linked to disciplines such as religion, philosophy or neurology (neurologist V. Ramachandran has shown that mentally healthy people have increased activity in the temporal lobe when exposes to words or spiritual subjects) and is currently also the subject of attention of psychology, more directly on transpersonal and humanistic psychology (among whose references are A. Maslow, G. Allport and C. Rogers) that include spirituality as part of an integrated and multidimensional conception of the human being (as a bio-psycho-socio-spiritual reality).

Within the field of psychology, the psychologists Koenig, McCullough and Larson point out spirituality as the personal search to understand the answers to the last questions about life, its meaning and the relationship with the sacred or the transcendent, which may or may not lead to the development of religious rituals and the formation of a community.

The relationship between psychology and spirituality is justified by the fact that the experience of existential issues occurs through mental phenomena such as meditation, states of consciousness, introspection, mystical experiences, self-transcendence, self-realization, etc., which are the subject of study in psychology. However, the essence of this relationship rests on two basic questions:

• Why does the human being need to have answers to existential questions to configure his spirituality?
• What can psychology contribute to the spirituality of the person?

The human being has a tendency to live in a balanced, calm and placid state of mind that allows him to live in harmony with himself and with his environment, but in many people this state is altered by the restlessness caused by not having a satisfactory response to they. This concern of psychological origin arises from two demands of human nature that have to do with survival and its relationship with the external environment:

The need for meaning

The need for things to have a meaning, a meaning (including life itself), which prompts you to discover and give an explanation to everything what surrounds him (why, how and for what things happen), and for this he needs to acquire more and more knowledge.

Regarding this need, it should be noted that human beings are naturally curious and eager for knowledge (it is related to the principle of reason sufficiently described by philosophy, which maintains that everything that exists has a reason that explains its existence and prompts man to wonder about the reasons that support what surrounds him), and in this eagerness to know he uses his mental faculties to achieve it (intelligence, memory, creativity, intuition, etc.). In this regard, Martin Seligman considers wisdom and love of knowledge (curiosity and interest in the world, interest in learning, critical thinking and open-mindedness) as one of the virtues required to achieve the welfare.

To obtain an explanation and a meaning to the world in which we live we resort mainly to the mental program that governs the cause-effect relationship, which starts from the premise that all observed phenomena have a cause (a reason for existing), and to know this cause information is needed. If we had all the necessary information on these questions, perhaps we could find a valid answer to them through reasoning, observation and experimentation. But the problem is that we currently lack complete and accurate information, and this lack prevents knowing the absolute truth about them and prompts us to create numerous theories and hypotheses to supply it.

The need for security

The need to feel safe in his world, which implies getting control of himself and the external environment with which he relates. The human being needs to be related to the environment in which he lives, but has realized that he is not in control of himself or his environment. You cannot avoid disease or aging, you cannot avoid negative emotions and suffering from unpleasant events, nor can he avoid the physical phenomena that cause catastrophes. This situation shows his weakness and impotence and the inability to direct his destiny, generating fear and concern and the need to have a “something” in which to seek support and security. On the other hand, he is amazed at the perfect organization of the universe, which works with its own laws, and at the wonderful complexity of life, which induces him to think that there must be a superior and omnipotent "something" (an organizing and controlling entity: a God, the cosmos, nature, a cosmic energy, a supernatural force, etc.).

The relationship between psychology and God

In the field of psychology, this situation bears a great similarity to the attachment figure. The psychologist John Bowlby points out that childhood attachment is part of an archaic inheritance whose function is the survival of the species, it has its evolutionary origin in the need for protection against predators or loneliness and therefore prompts to seek physical protection, demanding from the caretaker to conjure dangers to integrity. Bowlby defines attachment as “a way of conceptualizing the propensity of human beings to form strong emotional bonds with others and to extend the various ways of expressing emotions of anguish, depression, anger when they are abandoned or live a separation or lost". Here you will find more information about the attachment theory.

The need that many people have to address an entity or figure that provides security, encouragement and confidence in dangerous situations or threatening (and also to offer thanks if things go well as a gesture of gratitude) can be a reflection of this attachment figure that survives in age adulthood, since that is when, in addition to physical danger, experiences appear that are also experienced as a danger or threat (illnesses, separations, layoffs, etc. that generate fear, grief, anger, anguish, loneliness, hopelessness), and a support to face them is to turn to a higher being who is sensitive and receptive to his emotions and offers comfort to his distress (for example, the figure of a paternalistic God), especially when the person who suffers lives in solitude and has no one to talk to and share their desolation.

Thus, it is observed that the figure of infantile attachment is gradually transformed into a more psychological and spiritual dimension. This situation was already warned in his day by Sigmund Freud, that he described the human being as: “small and defenseless, even as an adult, powerless before the forces of nature and death, and that he remembers the times when his father protected him and provided everything; then and through a "regression", he imagines that there is an almighty being and takes refuge in the illusion of a god full of goodness, going from regression to the "sublimation" of figures parental ”.

What can psychology contribute to the spirituality of the person?

Answers

It is proven that science, philosophy or religion do not offer clear and indisputable answers on existential questions that are valid for all humanity. This has the consequence that many people do not find in them consistent references to which to avail themselves and are therefore immersed in restlessness and unease. For these people, psychology can be a reference to cling to to find the answers you need to these questions and create a spirituality that helps you achieve the welfare.

Welfare

Psychologists C. Peterson and M. Seligman consider spirituality as one of the human virtues that lead to the well-being of the person, it is a tool that provides strength necessary to face the negative events that life presents, and they define it as the ability to have coherent beliefs in relation to the most important purpose. high, the meaning of the universe and the place we occupy in it, and refers to beliefs that are based on the conviction that there is a transcendental dimension of life.

Sense of life

There is no doubt that psychology cannot answer the origin of the universe, of life, or of whether there is life after death, but Yes, it can help answer other related questions that are also part of the spiritual dimension of the person (for example: who am I, where do I come from and where am I going) and are closely linked to search for a meaning to life. In addition, they appear in all people at some point in their life, so it can be said that they are part of the essence of the human being. This is what he points out Viktor frankl: “The spiritual dimension is constitutive of man and goes beyond the psychophysical. The lack of it, although it is not channeled religiously, is a symptom of nonsense ”.

Belief analysis

An appreciation to take into account is that concern and fear are born from ignorance and this is fought with the discovery of the truth. But the total and absolute truth about existential questions is not possible to reach with current knowledge and to the maximum that we can aspire is to obtain partial truths that are coherent and harmonious with each other and that, as a whole, constitute a quasi truth. Psychology can help to construct the set of partial truths that a person needs to feel safe and confident (a particular and subjective truth) thanks to the fact that it has cognitive resources at its disposal (analysis, deduction, imagination, logical and abstract thinking, inference), feelings (fullness, satisfaction) and values ​​(freedom, prudence, equanimity, sincerity, honesty) by which you can evaluate and choose the beliefs that you consider appropriate to build your own model of spirituality, which does not necessarily have to coincide with that of other people or groups social.

One way to build this model is to propose it through a pragmatic approach, understanding by pragmatic what works well for us and produces the desired results. By virtue of this approach, it would be a question of creating a “pragmatic spirituality " in the form of a psychological construct that has cognitive and emotional roots, based on beliefs supported by a truth that contains a degree of certainty and acceptable credibility and enough to bring the person closer to a "something" beyond the daily material reality, which gives meaning and added value to life and strength to face the challenges it faces. Present. This form of spirituality would require accepting human limitations and renouncing the knowledge of absolute truth, assuming that it will be necessary to live with the unsolvable doubts that appear. Pragmatic spirituality could be summarized in the following expression:

• If the model of spirituality that I have built strengthens, helps and comforts meWhy not accept it and follow it despite the doubts that arise?

To configure this spirituality and given that the way forward involves the search for truths about existential questions, three principles must be taken into account:

1. Although science cannot ensure the truth of all things, it can refute facts that some institutions may present as truths.
2. If something is unknown, it does not necessarily imply that it does not exist, since it can be "knowable", that is, that it is capable of being known in the future.
3. Use intuition (hunch or sixth sense) to instinctively distinguish what information is credible, and if it is not, discard it. In the following article we talk about How to develop intuition.

Following these principles, a set of beliefs can be made that will fill spirituality with content. One way to carry out this process is to pass through the sieve of science the currently known beliefs and select those that are considered contrasted and consistent, which will constitute the "rational" structure of the spirituality. Is structure forged by scientific knowledge, having this limited knowledge to the physical world, it must be completed with the immaterial component of spirituality, coming mainly from the knowledge that philosophy and religion can contribute and that is consistent with the structure rational, inserting in it a transcendence towards a "something" of a higher order beyond everyday materiality, accepting the intuition that this "something" may exist (which is knowable), although its true nature cannot be affirmed at this time.

In addition to these principles and as support to successfully build this spirituality, the psychologist Danah Zohar and the psychiatrist Ian Marshall have proposed a spiritual intelligence, which they define as “the intelligence with which we face and solve problems of meanings and values, the intelligence with which we can put our actions and experiences in a broader and richer context of meanings and values, the intelligence with which we can determine that a course of action or a life path is more valuable than other". It means experiencing that we are more than our thoughts and emotions and that, when we access that dimension, everything is perceived in a radically new way. Spiritual intelligence enhances capacities such as serenity, detached observation of what is happening, equanimity, inner freedom, compassion, etc.

Characteristics of spiritual intelligence

For these authors, spiritual intelligence is distinguished by the following characteristics:

• Possess a high level of self-awareness.
• Ability to be flexible in your own ideas and opinions.
• Ability to face and transcend pain and suffering and learn from it.
• The ability to see a problem from a distance, placing it in a broader context.
• Tendency to see the relationships and connections between things (holism).
• Reluctance to cause unnecessary harm and have deep empathy.
• Marked tendency to understand things and get to the bottom of them, the why of them, their meaning, and to seek fundamental answers.
• Ease of resisting the criteria of the majorities and sustaining and acting in accordance with personal principles and convictions.
• Having a sense of vocation: feeling called to serve, to give something in return to others and to the world.

On the other hand, the way of manifesting this spirituality (symbols, rites, customs) will also depend on each person, without prejudice to doing it or not within a community or specific creed, since spirituality is not only rooted in religion, but it can be lived from other spheres and other dimensions by anyone who has the need to transcend and to seek answers: the practice of solitude, silence, the Yoga, aesthetic contemplation, meditation, mindfulness, live according to nature, etc.

Finally, it is interesting because of its relationship with this approach, what a Greek philosophical school preached that points out the right path to follow in the search for a spirituality:

“A complete and exact knowledge of the great questions that concern man is impossible or extremely difficult to acquire in this life, but not examining by all possible means what is said about them, or desisting from doing so, before having tired of considering them From all points of view, it is characteristic of the very cowardly man, because what must be achieved with respect to such questions is one of these stuff:

• Learn or discover for yourself what is in them.
• If this is impossible, take at least the best and most difficult human tradition to refute and, embarking on it like a raft, risk realizing the life's journey, if it cannot be done with greater safety and less danger in a firmer ship, such as a revelation of the divinity."

This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

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• Bowlby, J. (1997). The affective bond. Ed. Paidós Ibérica.
• Freud, S. (1971). The future of an Illusion. Buenos Aires, Ed. Paidós.
• Koenig, H, McCullough, M. and Larson, D. (2001). Handbook of Religion and Health. Oxford University Press.
• Peterson, C. and Seligman, M. (2004). Character Strengths and Virtues. Ed. Oxford Press.
• Zohar, D. and Marshall, I. (2001). Spiritual intelligence. Ed. Plaza and Janes.