PSYCHOLOGY AS A RESOURCE FOR CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALITY

Psychology is a valuable resource for spirituality when researchers incorporate mutually critical correlations in their use of this discipline. It can be used to identify pathological elements in religious practice, uncover unconscious motivation, provide developmental schemas, and describe responses to meditative experiences. Researchers in spirituality will most likely draw on different schools of psychology in relationship to the particular phenomenon under investigation. Their critical perspective will uncover the presuppositions of psychologies that are either hostile to religion or neglect relationship to transcendence within their theories. Researchers in spirituality will want to retain a religious vocabulary and theological perspective. © 1990, The College Theology Society. All rights reserved.