Psychology, Religion and Spirituality

by Fontana, David

• ISBN13: 9781405108065
• ISBN10: 1405108061
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-06-02
• Publisher: Wiley

Summary

At a time when religious fundamentalism is having a huge impact upon the world, this book helps us to understand how people acquire, conceptualize and practice religion at both personal and social levels. Drawing on relevant research material, author David Fontana explores the effects of religious and spiritual belief on behavior, and on physical and psychological health. He outlines the various approaches to religious and spiritual experience, and examines the different forms such experience takes. He looks at religious and spiritual practices, such as prayer, meditation and ritual, and links religion and spirituality to the major psychological theories. This reader-friendly book will be of interest to clergy, professional psychologists, and students and teachers of psychology and religion, as well as to the general public.

Author Biography

David Fontana is a Chartered Psychologist and a Chartered Counselling Psychologist. He is a Fellow of the British Psychological Society, and was Founding Chairman of the Society’s Transpersonal Psychology Section. He holds a Ph.D. in Psychology, together with a number of other degrees and professional qualifications, and is currently Distinguished Visiting Fellow at Cardiff University and Visiting Professor of Transpersonal Psychology at Liverpool John Moores University. He has written widely on the psychology of spirituality and on the traditions and practices of the major Eastern and Western psycho-spiritual traditions. His 23 books are translated into 26 languages.

Table of Contents

Introduction	vi
1. Why the Psychology of Religion?	1	(5)
2. Definitions and Meanings	6	(17)
3. Introspection and Inner Experience	23	(9)
4. Approaches to the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality	32	(12)
5. Religious Beliefs and Practices	44	(18)
6. Approaches to Spiritual Development	62	(18)
7. Spirituality and the Brain	80	(5)
8. The Origins of Religious Belief	85	(19)
9. Religious Expression in Myth and the Creative Arts	104	(4)
10. Varieties of Religious and Spiritual Experience	108	(51)
11. Concepts of Self, Soul, and Brain	159	(46)
12. Religion, Health, and Well-being	205	(23)
Conclusion	228	(2)
References	230	(21)
Index	251