This article discusses the development of the Spiritual Bypass Scale-13 (SBS-13). Spiritual bypass is a clinical process of avoiding difficult psychological material using spiritual beliefs, practices, or experiences. A major limitation to the literature on spiritual bypass is that no psychometrically sound measures of the phenomenon exist, thus preventing scholars and clinicians from understanding its causes and treatment implications beyond anecdotal case reports. The SBS-13 was developed using a community sample of 661 participants. The factor structure of the SBS-13 was investigated using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis which identified 2 facets (Psychological Avoidance and Spiritualizing) with a second order facet (Spiritual Bypass). The reliability of SBS-13 was satisfactory, with alpha coefficients ranging from .75 to .87 across 2 different samples. The convergent, discriminant, predictive, and incremental validity of the SBS-13 was assessed using several criterion variables including measures of spirituality, religiosity, religious problems-solving style, mindfulness, stress, anxiety, depression, and the Five Factor Model of Personality. We concluded that the SBS-13 is a significant contribution to the research on spiritual bypass and can be used in clinical settings as a screening tool and for future research.

Spiritual bypass denotes a process by which an individual avoids painful psychological experiences by using spirituality as a defense. Although spiritual bypass is often detected within psychological treatment, it has only recently been studied empirically. In the current study, we extend the study of spiritual bypass by testing (a) its associations with religious commitment, spirituality, attitudes toward God, and psychological as well as medical help-seeking attitudes and (b) direct and indirect relationships using bias-corrected, bootstrapped confidence intervals using a model recommended by Hayes (2018). In Study 1, we surveyed 265 community-based adults recruited from Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk). Religious commitment and spirituality were directly related to attitudes toward psychological help-seeking. However, these relationships were indirectly associated with spiritual bypass. In Study 2, we surveyed 199 undergraduate students and found that attitudes toward God (i.e., positive attitudes toward or disappointment and anger with God) were related to medical help-seeking attitudes. Likewise, these relationships were indirectly associated with spiritual bypass. The implications were that (a) religious and spiritual variables relate to help-seeking attitudes; (b) religious and spiritual associations with help-seeking are both directly and indirect associated with spiritual bypass, and additional research is needed to uncover precise conditions under which spiritual bypass might or might not causally affect these relationships (i.e., investigate potential moderators and mediational effects); and (c) in practice, spiritual bypass can be an important patient quality to consider in relation to an individual's attitudes toward and perhaps benefit from psychological help.

Spiritual bypass is a defensive psychological posture that prevents people from feeling the pain of difficult emotions or experiences through 2 primary pathways: (a) Psychological Avoidance and (b) Spiritualizing. The authors collected a sample (783 participants) from the general population and tested a parallel mediation model in which 2 factors of spiritual bypass mediated the effect of spirituality on depression, anxiety, and stress. The results demonstrated that Psychological Avoidance and Spiritualizing partially mediated the effect of spirituality on depression and anxiety, whereas they completely mediated the effect of spirituality on stress. The findings are presented in the context of the study's limitations, and implications for clinical practice and research are provided.

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The purpose of the present study was to examine the psychometric characteristics of the Spiritual Bypass Scale-13 (SBS-13) in India. English-speaking Indian graduate students (N ϭ 250) at a large university participated. Students were 22 years of age on average, and most were women, Indian, Hindu, and never married. The main measure of interest was the SBS-13. Convergent validity measures included the Religious Commitment Inventory-10, Sources of Spirituality Scale, and the Brief RCOPE. The factor structure of the SBS-13 initially reported in both the United States and Brazil was replicated in an Indian sample. A two-factor model (i.e., psychological avoidance and spiritualizing) was found as was a second-order model representing a SBS-13 total score. Alpha coefficients for scores on the subscales and total score were above .8. Convergent validity coefficients for associations of the SBS-13 with religious commitment, spirituality, and religious coping ranged from .23 to .73 with magnitude and direction consistent with prior studies. The present study provides initial evidence of the utility of the SBS-13 in an Indian sample.

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The purpose of this article is to present and discuss three validation studies of the Spiritual Bypass Scale-13 (SBS-13) on a sample of the Brazilian population. These studies have three purposes (a) to recover the twofactor solution of the SBS-13 among a Brazilian population sample; (b) understand how religious affiliation, age, and gender can predict levels of psychological avoidance and spiritualizing; and (c) explore the relationships between spiritual bypass and psycho-social variables, which include depression, anxiety, stress, narcissism, and preference for solitude. All data have been collected using an online self-report survey, and the pre-requisites for filling out the questionnaire are: (a) Brazilian citizenship, (b) a minimum of 18 years of age, and (c) ascribing to some form of spirituality or religion. Based on two different samples of the Brazilian population (N 1 = 193 and N 2 = 729) that follow, the studies evidence acceptable reliability and validity of the Spiritual Bypass Scale-Brazilian Translation (SBS-BT) for use in the Brazilian Portuguese-speaking community.Using confirmatory factor analysis, we have successfully replicated a two-factor structure of the SBS-BT while controlling for the effects of age, gender, and religious affiliation. The model replicates the two-factor structure of the Brazilian version of the SBS with indications of good fit: X