Editorial: Spirituality and Mental Health: Exploring the Meaning of the Word “Spiritual”

Scientific studies have demonstrated in recent decades a positive causal relationship between spiritual well-being and good physical and mental health parameters. Spiritual well-being has been shown to regulate neurotrophic function, mainly through stress reduction (Saad et al., 2019; Peres et al., 2020). Furthermore, biological and psychological changes have been documented in acts such as prayer, forgiveness, gratitude, meditation, sacred rituals, and blessings (Blažević, 2021). Spiritual coping, i.e., using faith-related practices and concepts to deal constructively with threatening situations, may be a valuable resource for well-being. On the other hand, spiritual conflicts may exacerbate stress and negatively impact the patient’s health.

The dimension of spirituality in medicine and research also includes the empirical study of spiritual and paranormal experiences, usually referred to in the academic literature as anomalous experiences. For example, research on altered consciousness associated with mediumship and spontaneous spiritual awakening experiences has important implications for the intersection of physiology, consciousness, and spirituality (Maraldi, 2021; Tressoldi et al., 2022). Near-death experiences are also an intriguing phenomenon that defies purely materialistic explanations.

Acknowledging patients’ spiritual values ​​and experiences is therefore paramount in providing high standards of medical training and clinical practice. However, medical professionals and researchers working on spiritual issues are challenged with dealing with a very wide range of spiritual and religious beliefs. This challenge is made even more difficult because most medical courses do not provide their graduates with education in this area. Moreover, professionals may also face prejudiced behaviors and attitudes from colleagues and managers.

Furthermore, the term “spiritual” remains an open and fluid concept without a single definition that is universally accepted in the fields of medicine and research. More recently, more secular forms of spiritual experience have emerged from rationalist, humanistic, and analytical thinking. For example, self-designated beliefs that are “spiritual but not religious” have become increasingly popular (Saad and de Medeiros, 2020).

This Research Topic explored the intersection of various “spiritual” concepts with medicine and the resulting clinical implications. The collected material may be of interest to practitioners and scholars working in the health and behavioral sciences. The aim of this Topic is not to find a one-size-fits-all solution to the many terminological problems in the field of spirituality, but to broaden the discussion and raise awareness of the relevance and importance of spiritual aspects in patient care. Such awareness may have implications for academic understanding, clinical practice, institutional programs, and government policies. The selection of articles provides a springboard for thinking about the many intriguing possibilities at the intersection of spirituality and mental health.

Papers on concept definitions and research tools

Sena et al. investigated the definition of spirituality in the medical field and identified its main aspects through a systematic review of scientific journals. The authors constructed a framework to represent spirituality as a quantifiable construct, which may help to improve understanding of the complexity of this topic. Braghetta et al. developed a new scale to assess spirituality and evaluated its reliability and validity. The Attitudes Regarding Spirituality Scale (ARES) has proven to be a reliable, valid and stable unidimensional instrument for use in Portuguese-speaking populations, allowing for studies of its validity in other cultures and languages.

Papers on spirituality and religiosity in relation to mental and physical health and well-being

Rathakrishnan et al. studied the mediating role of spirituality in fear and mental health related to the COVID-19 pandemic among Malay adults. The results showed that people with higher spirituality tend to have lower levels of mental health…! Maulina et al. investigated the relationship between emotional state, somatosensory amplification, and spirituality among university students in Japan and Indonesia. Despite significant cross-cultural differences in spiritual beliefs, spirituality was shown to play a role in physical symptoms and positive emotions in both cultures.

Leal et al. examined the common perception in the psychology literature that hope for miracles can have negative effects on medical care. They provided two examples showing relatively few negative effects of praying for miracles and concluded that the practice can be perceived as an openness to life, enhanced hope, and awareness of reality. In a subsequent paper from the same group, de Freitas et al. explored a model for better understanding the role of belief in miracles and for assessing the impact of belief in miracles on health parameters. The presented conceptual model can help to better understand patients’ belief in miracles, its role in personal experience, and its impact on medical care.

Spirituality-based health interventions

Mossbridge et al. investigated time perspective as having good thoughts about the past, recognizing the constraints of the present, and adaptively planning for a positive future. They created a web application, “The Time Machine,” a scalable time-travel narrative tool, to help people feel connected to their wise and loving future selves. Labeyron proposed a clinical approach to counseling individuals who have had unusual spiritual experiences in distressing situations. The authors present a model of psychodynamic psychotherapy for unusual experiences. Such a non-judgmental and open listening approach may replace this distressing experience with an integrative and transformative one.

Articles on spiritual and religious issues in the medical field

Cone and Giske conducted a study using a self-assessment survey tool to investigate the spiritual care competencies of mental health staff in Norway and to understand the perspectives of mental health staff in Scandinavian culture. Although small, the study revealed the need for spiritual care educational materials explicitly targeted at people working in mental health. Borragini-Abuchaim et al. investigated the opinions of medical students at a national medical university in Brazil. The authors concluded that including topics of spiritual aspects is feasible. The results suggest that aspects of patients’ spirituality/religious beliefs have become an accepted component of modern medical care. See also Borragini-Abuchaim et al. for a correction to the original paper.

Papers about unusual religious and spiritual experiences

Bussing studied “awe,” a perceptual aspect of spirituality associated with religious and non-religious people. Higher scores for gratitude and awe were found in older subjects, the happiest people, and those who meditated or prayed frequently. “Awe” was associated with many positive items of existential well-being. Corneille and Luke studied spontaneous spiritual awakening (SSA). SSA is a subjective experience characterized by a sudden experience of contact, union, or oneness with ultimate reality, the universe, “God,” or the divine. Temporal lobe lability and trait absorption (the tendency to focus attention on a task) predicted these experiences.

Spindola-Rodrigues et al. assessed the cognitive function of 19 mediums practicing trance mediumship in Brazil. Neuropsychological tests showed that their cognitive scores were comparable to or higher than the average Brazilian score. Less experienced mediums, on the other hand, showed impaired executive function and increased general psychiatric disorders. Houran and Laythe tested the validity and practicality of the concept of a “ghost syndrome” (individuals who repeatedly report various “supernatural” encounters). The authors concluded that the trials of the families studied were related to psychological limitations and exaggerated and catastrophic reactions in the face of stressful situations.

Author contributions

MS, ED and EM acted as guest editors for the thematic research topic. They jointly wrote this editorial based on the collected papers. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher’s note

All claims made in this article are those of the authors themselves and do not necessarily represent those of their institutions, publishers, editors, or reviewers. Products evaluated in this article, or claims made by their manufacturers, are not endorsed or approved by the publishers.

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