Coping With Religious and Spiritual Struggles: Religious and Secular Techniques

Religious/spiritual (r/s) struggles can be emotionally painful, yet little is known about how people cope with them. In our study, undergraduates (N = 976) who were currently experiencing an r/s struggle completed the Religious and Spiritual Struggles Scale (RSS) and standardized, self-report measures of religious coping, secular coping, and religiousness. Zero-order correlations revealed that, in general, RSS subscales related positively to most religious coping techniques (except those focused on pursuing a closer relationship with God) and secular coping techniques. Controlling for religiousness weakened some associations between some r/s struggles and religious coping (e.g., for demonic and moral struggles) and strengthened others (e.g., for divine and interpersonal struggles); however, associations with secular coping were relatively unchanged. These findings suggest that, regardless of religiousness, more intense r/s struggles associate with heightened and diverse efforts to cope, with the caveat that some r/s strugglers may be hesitant to rely on God. Additionally, we observed some nuances in the unique associations between r/s struggles and religious coping across r/s struggle domains. Demonic struggles were the strongest predictor of religious coping. Divine and interpersonal struggles showed mostly positive but weak associations with religious coping. Moral struggles specifically predicted coping focused on purification of perceived sins. Doubt and ultimate meaning struggles showed some negative associations with religious coping techniques. Clinicians may find r/s struggle-coping associations useful. Providers could use the information to educate clients about the ways in which people try to navigate r/s struggles and to guide discussions about coping over the course of treatment.