Abstract:

This article examines psychotherapy’s changing attitude toward religion and

spirituality, a change that signals a greater openness not only to explicit religion

and spirituality, but also to the key elements of implicit religion. Recent studies

indicate that the primary psychological elements of implicit religion are identity,

values, worldview, and meaning. To the degree that psychotherapy helps people

rewrite their personal story and redraw their cognitive and moral maps of

reality, it deals directly with these core aspects of their implicit religion and

spirituality. This essay explores how these dimensions of implicit religion are

essential factors, dealt with in the course of psychotherapy.

Author: James Gollnick