Positive Emotions, Spirituality and the Practice of Psychiatry

Abstract

This paper proposes that eight positive emotions: awe, love (attachment), trust (faith), compassion, gratitude, forgiveness, joy and hope constitute what we mean by spirituality. These emotions have been grossly ignored by psychiatry. The two sciences that I shall employ to demonstrate this definition of spirituality will be ethology and neuroscience. They are both very new. I will argue that spirituality is not about ideas, sacred texts and theology; rather, spirituality is all about emotion and social connection.Specific religions, for all their limitations, are often the portal through which positive emotions are brought into conscious attention. Neither Freud nor psychiatric textbooks ever mention emotions like joy and gratitude. Hymns and psalms give these emotions pride of place. Our whole concept of psychotherapy might change if clinicians set about enhancing positive emotions rather than focusing only on negative emotions.

The role of spirituality in specialist psychiatry: A review of the medical literature

“…29, 31 Vaillant used arguments pertaining to genetic evolution and language development, to propose the maturation of human spirituality as the "third" human evolutionary process. [97][98] He suggested that three evolutions could be identified, the genetic (Darwinian) evolution, a cultural evolution (mediated by the development of language) and then the maturation of human spirituality. Anandarajah described two multidimensional models for spirituality applicable across culture and belief systems that could be used for patient care, education and research.…”

Effect of Positive Emotions on Health: Hope and Humor

“…Dr. Vaillant urges everyone to "[w]orry less about cholesterol and more about gratitude and forgiveness." 39 Dr. Vaillant equates the innate positive emotions of awe, love (attachment), trust (faith), compassion, gratitude, forgiveness, joy, and hope with spirituality 40. …”

The Family Sanctum: The Promise of Love’s Continuing Enlargement Across the Lifespan

“…Humanistic psychology (Maslow, 1954(Maslow, , 1976Rogers, 1964) acknowledges that spirituality is woven into the very fabric of human existence; however, this article furthers the position that the human striving for love and connection is the very definition of human spirituality (Vaillant, 2008a(Vaillant, , 2008b; see also, Saroglou, Buxant, & Tilquin, 2008). By suggesting that the original human intention to connect re-emerges in each subsequent developmental stage, merely reconfiguring to fit the requirements of current developmental tasks, it argues that the early family is an important arbiter of human spirituality across the lifespan.…”

“…Love is expansive The Family Sanctum 245 and makes us flexible, creative, and more integrated (Isen, Rosenzweig, & Young, 1991;Panksepp, 1998;Lyubomirsky & King, 2005), whereas negative emotions such as fear and anxiety narrow our attention to the self (Fredrickson, 2004) and are about individual survival in the present moment. Vaillant (2008a) argues through a review of neuroscience that our brains are hardwired to generate positive emotions; we need only to recognize them as relevant for our spirituality and continued evolution. He writes that human spirituality is our "evolutionary press towards connection and communitybuilding .…”