Consider the spiritual elements that I pointed out from research on spirituality and health in the previous parts of this series. They were: meaning, gratitude, peace, confidence, sense of identity, and acceptance.

The somatic (body mind) approaches to psychotherapy, including EMDR, tend to “unlock” these experiences in ways that are very personal to the individual. Generally, people refer to this sensation of de-stressing and expanding awareness as a spiritual experience. They feel that their greater ease in expressing their higher values is a spiritual achievement. The subjective sense of energy work that can be used in creating the positive “state shift” that I mentioned in the last article can also feel very spiritual. Read more →

In this article, we’ll look at some active ingredients of spirituality that are supported by research. Since they turned out to be God-optional, I’ll call this SIN (spiritually integrative neurology).

Active vs. Passive: Locus of Control in Spirituality

To understand spirituality and health, we must recognize the difference between active and passive spiritual attitudes. Locus of control has been known to be an important factor in health for a long time. Read more →

Ancient Asian medicine has long linked emotions and intention to health, however, Western medicine has been less receptive to devising a relationship. Recent lines of psychological studies demonstrate that the way people think, act, and feel about certain situations, events, and ideas greatly influence health behaviors and are represented in the biopsychosocial model of health and illness.

The latest trend in personality psychology has been “positive” psychology. In general, certain personality factors are known to lead to good and bad health (see table below). Optimism, extraversion, conscientiousness, and an internal locus of control have lead to healthy behaviors. Read more →