Spiritual and Religious Pathology in Childhood and Adolescence

An Investigation of the Relationships Between Spirituality, Health Status and Quality of Life in Adolescents

“…Existing spiritual wellbeing instruments that were found based on an in-depth literature search for a meta-analysis of the association between spirituality and QOL (Sawatzky et al 2005) were reviewed to identify attributes of spirituality that are relevant to health and QOL and appropriate for adolescents. We specifically selected items that reflect contemporary definitions of spirituality that emphasize its experiential and existential attributes, such as the previously cited definition of spirituality in the context of adolescent development offered by Wagener and Newton Malony (2006). Items measuring beliefs or practices that are specific to a particular religion were avoided so as to be as inclusive as possible.…”

Searching for the sacred: Religion, spirituality, and adolescent development.

“…Religiousness and spirituality are complex and can engender positive results, but they can also be sources of significant distress and struggle (Exline & Rose, 2005; see also Chapter 25 in this volume). A complete picture of adolescent RSD warrants an overview of the negative psychological and social outcomes that arise when religious and spiritual development goes awry (see Oser, Scarlett, & Bucher, 2006;Silberman, Higgins, & Dweck, 2005;Wagener & Malony, 2006). The following section provides an overview of how adolescent religion and spirituality are capable of doing harm to either the developing person or others.…”

An Exploratory Study of School Psychology Students’ Perceptions of Religious and Spiritual Diversity Training in their Graduate Programs

“…Still, some students may experience emotional distress as a result of experiencing religious/spiritual issues, such as feeling punished by God, being obsessed with salvation, or trying to reconcile the tension between their sexual orientation, gender identity and religious/spiritual identity (Kim & Esquivel, (Kim and Esquivel, 2011 ); Wagener & Mahoney, (Wagener and Mahoney, 2006 ); Yarhouse & Tan, (Yarhouse, 2005 )). Furthermore, certain groups of youth may experience bullying and harsh treatment at school, including students who are in the minority based on their religious/spiritual affiliation (Atwal & Wang, (Atwal, 2019 ); Dupper et al, (Dupper et al, 2015 )) and students whose sexual orientation and gender identity are presumed to be antithetical to particular religious/spiritual beliefs (Newman et al, (Newman et al, 2018 )).…”