The belief in miracle, as a modality of spiritual/religious coping (SRC) strategy in the face of stress and psychic suffering, has been discussed in psychological literature with regard to its positive or negative role on the health and well-being of patients and family members. In contemporary times, where pseudo-conflicts between religion and science should have been long overcome, there is still some tendency of interpreting belief in miracle – as the possibility of a cure granted by divine intervention, modifying the normal course of events in a bleak medical diagnosis – as having unhealthy impacts in the care and treatment of health. This position seeks to find a base in the three characteristics of hoping in a miracle, frequently pointed out by psychological literature: (a) it would imply a negation of reality instead of its confrontation; (b) it would be a coping strategy focused on emotion instead of the problem; (c) it would imply seeking to modify the supposed desire of God by extra-natural facts. In this study, we shall critically discuss this position and the dangers of its crystallization by the use of SRC scales in which the act of praying for a miracle is previously classified as a negative strategy. We revisit some tendencies in psychological literature about the subject, taking into consideration the various facets of miracle, sociocultural facts, elements of idiographic nature, and their profound outcomes in the lives of people especially in health contexts. We illustrate the dangers of a hasty generalization of the results of nomothetic studies about the role of belief in miracle with two examples of research in the Brazilian context: one carried out with pregnant women with fetal malformation and the other with family members caring for children and adolescents with cancer under chemotherapeutic treatment. In both studies, the results do not confirm the predominance of the negative aspects associated with the act of praying for a miracle, which we discuss and analyze in light of the phenomenological perspective. In this perspective, “pray for a miracle”, as experienced by patients and caregivers, can be recognized as an act of openness to life (instead of isolation in a bleak perspective), bolstering hope, and the resignification of reality in the psyche.
O artigo apresenta e discute resultados de um estudo acerca das concepções de capelães sobre as relações entre religiosidade e saúde mental (SM) daqueles sob seus cuidados. A pesquisa, de natureza descritivo-empírico-fenomenológica, empregou entrevistas semiestruturadas, conduzidas com quinze capelães do Distrito Federal. Depois de transcritas e revisadas, foram analisadas segundo o método de Giorgi, buscando-se apreender os sentidos das concepções e experiências relatadas pelos participantes. Verificou-se predominância na percepção de relações positivas entre religiosidade e SM, mas os capelães também apontaram relações negativas, “facas de dois gumes” e não lineares.
Considerando-se o convite ético e reparador conduzido pelo Sínodo da Amazônia, neste artigo discorremos e discutimos criticamente as intervenções em contextos indígenas sob duas perspectivas: uma primeira, relacionada a ações propostas pelo contexto da saúde; e uma segunda, às mediações do contexto pastoral. Após identificar algumas especificidades da cosmologia indígena, discorremos sobre as características e vicissitudes de ambas as formas e contextos de atuação, avaliando criticamente suas respectivas decorrências, com vistas à proposição de um encontro dialógico, ético e respeitoso de profissionais de saúde e religiosos com os povos indígenas de nosso país.
As a continuation of the previous paper, Praying for a Miracle – Negative or Positive Impacts on Health Care, published in this research topic, this second paper aims at delving deeper into the same theme, but now from a simultaneously practical and conceptual approach. With that in mind, we revisit three theoretical models based on evidence, through which we can understand the role of a miracle in hospital settings and assess its impact in health contexts. For each of the models described, we seek to illustrate the possible outcomes of belief in miracles as a modality of religious coping in situations of stress and suffering experienced by patients and caregivers in the face of gloomy diagnoses on coming across the limits of medicine to revert certain illnesses (e.g., child cancer) or biological conditions (e.g., fetal malformation). We posit that the judgment about how such a mechanism is healthy or not for each of the people involved (patient, caregiver, and/or health professional) depends on the modulation between the conception of the miracle adopted by the patient and/or caregiver and the concrete outcomes of the way of responding to the situations that accompany the gravity of the illness or condition. To better understand this process of psychological modulation that accompanies belief in miracles, we revisit the concepts of spirituality, religiosity, and religion, pointing out the connections and distinctions between them from a phenomenological perspective. We then present a conceptual model that takes these connections and distinctions into consideration to foster an understanding of miracles, their relations with the diversity of experiences of people who meet in hospital settings (patients, caregivers, and health professionals), and their respective impacts on healthcare.
This article focuses on the description, discussion, and problematization of the ways indigenous spirituality is presented in a Brazil’s hospital, in the context of the treatment of chronic illnesses in children under medical supervision. It describes a short extract from a more wide-ranging study, focusing on the analysis of excerpts of the verbal responses of health professionals, and of two specific cases. Adopting a phenomenological approach, the vicissitudes of the hospitalization of indigenous children are described from the perspectives of the professionals, with an emphasis on the outcomes of the reported cases, which are riddled with impasses and challenges, with important implications for the country’s health policy and for the training of health professionals. Grounded on the cosmological explications for the illness, the indigenous child’s family members tend to resort to pajelança , (indigenous traditional healing rituals), even within the hospital environment, with or without the consent of the medical team. This process does not always end harmoniously or in an integrated fashion, evidencing the rifts in the interaction between indigenous curing practices, underpinned by thousands of years of tradition, and medical practices grounded on formal, rational, and scientific understanding. We conclude by indicating perspectives for professional training and the respective ethical considerations.
More and more, the elderly population is assuming a fundamental role in the structure of our society. However, this advancement does not appear to be matched by a change in the subconscious of many people in contemporary society who still tend to nurse a certain stigma with regard to old age. Ageism is the term that represents prejudice against and discrimination of the elderly and the ageing process. Religiosity has been suggested as one of the protective factors against ageism. In order to investigate the relationship between ageism and religiosity in future health professionals, this article describes a study carried out with students of Psychology and Medicine in a university in the Federal District of Brasilia. A total of 88 Psychology and 80 Medicine undergraduates took part in the study. The Fraboni Scale of Ageism and the Duke Scale of Religiosity were employed. The results show a predominance of positive attitudes towards the elderly, a prevalence of religious believers in both groups studied as well as a modest relationship between ageism and religiosity. The implications for training in the area of health are discussed
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