Spirituality and psychosocial factors in persons living with HIV.
(1/39)
AIM OF THE STUDY: This pilot study was designed to examine the relationships among spirituality and psychosocial factors in a sample of 52 adult males living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) disease and to determine the most reliable spirituality measure for a proposed longitudinal study. BACKGROUND: HIV disease is among the most devastating of illnesses, having multiple and profound effects upon all aspects of the biopsychosocial and spiritual being. Although research has suggested relationships among various psychosocial and spiritual factors, symptomatology and physical health, much more research is needed to document their potential influences on immune function, as well as health status, disease progression, and quality of life among persons with HIV disease. METHODS: This descriptive correlational study explored the relationships of spirituality and psychosocial measures. Spirituality was measured in terms of spiritual perspective, well-being and health using three tools: the Spiritual Perspective Scale, the Spiritual Well-Being Scale, and the Spiritual Health Inventory. Five psychosocial instruments were used to measure aspects of stress and coping: the Mishel Uncertainty in Illness Scale, Dealing with Illness Scale, Social Provisions Scale, Impact of Events Scale, and Functional Assessment of HIV Infection Scale. The sample was recruited as part of an ongoing funded study. The procedures from the larger study were well-defined and followed in this pilot study. Correlational analyses were done to determine the relationship between spirituality and the psychosocial measures. FINDINGS: The findings indicate that spirituality as measured by the existential well-being (EWB) subscale of the Spiritual Well-Being Scale was positively related to quality of life, social support, effective coping strategies and negatively related to perceived stress, uncertainty, psychological distress and emotional-focused coping. The other spirituality measures had less significant or non significant relationships with the psychological measures. CONCLUSIONS: The study findings support the inclusion of spirituality as a variable for consideration when examining the psychosocial factors and the quality of life of persons living with HIV disease. The spiritual measure that best captures these relationships is the EWB subscale of the Spiritual Well-Being Scale. (+info)
Holistic medicine: scientific challenges.
(2/39)
The field of holistic medicine is in need of a scientific approach. We need holistic medicine--and we even need it to be spiritual to include the depths of human existence--but we need it to be a little less "cosmic" in order to encompass the whole human being. Many important research questions and challenges, empirical as well as theoretical, demand the attention from medical researchers. Like a number of other practitioners and researchers, our group at the Quality of Life Research Center in Denmark together with groups in Norway and Israel are trying to tackle the research challenge by using conceptual frameworks of quality of life. We have suggested that quality of life represents a third influence on health beyond the genetic and traumatic factors so far emphasized by mainstream medicine. In our clinical and research efforts, we attempt to specify what a clinician may do to help patients help themselves, by mobilizing the vast resources hidden in their subjective worlds and existence, in their hopes and dreams, and their will to live. The field of holistic medicine must be upgraded to fully integrate human consciousness, scientifically as well as philosophically. We therefore present a number of important research questions for a consciousness-based holistic medicine. New directions in healthcare are called for and we need a new vision of the future of the healthcare sector in the industrialized countries. Every person seems to have immense potentials for self-healing that we scarcely know how to mobilize. A new holistic medicine must find ways to tackle this key challenge. A healthcare system that could do that successfully would bring quality of life, health, and new ability of functioning to many people. (+info)
The life mission theory II. The structure of the life purpose and the ego.
(3/39)
Pursuing your life mission is often very difficult, and many frustrations are experienced along the way. Major failures to bring out our potential can cause us considerable emotional pain. When this pain is unbearable, we are induced to shift from one intention and talent to another that better allows us to adapt and survive. Thus, we become set on a course that brings out a secondary or tertiary talent instead of the primary talent. This talent displacement may be expressed as a loss of our true nature or true self. The new purpose in life now functions as the core of a new personality: the ego. The ego has a structure similar to that of the true self. It is anchored in a talent and it draws on subtalents. But the person who is centered in his or her ego is not as powerful or talented as the person he or she originally was, living the primary purpose of life. This is because the original personality (the true self or "higher self") is still there, active and alive, behind the ego. Symptoms, disorders, and diseases may be explained by the loss of energy, joy in life, and intuitive competence because of inner conflicts, which may be alleviated or cured in the salutogenetic process of Antonovsky that helps patients find their sense of coherence or their primary purpose in life. Many cases of reduced ability to function, physically as well as psychologically, socially or sexually, can also be explained and alleviated in this way. When a person discovers his true talent and begins to use it with dedication, privately as well as professionally, his life will flourish and he may overcome even serious disease and great adversity in life. The salutogenetic process can also be called personal development or "quality of life as medicine". It is important to note that the plan for personal development laid out by this theory is a plan not for the elimination of the ego, but for its cultivation. An existentially sound person still has a mental ego of course, but it is centered on the optimal verbal expression of the life mission. Such an ego is not in conflict with one's true self, but supports the life and wholeness of the person, although in an invisible and seamless way. The more developed the person, the more talents are taken into use. So although the core of existence remains the same throughout life, the healthy person continues to grow. As the number of talents we can call on is unlimited, the journey ends only at death. Understanding the concept of the ego, it is very easy for the physician to motivate the patient to go through a lot of difficulties in order to grow and develop, and when the patient fully understands the concept of the ego and the true self (higher self), the patient gets a strong feeling of direction in personal development, and a motivation to fight the internal obstacles for quality of life, health, and the ability to function. (+info)
The life mission theory III. Theory of talent.
(4/39)
When we acknowledge our purpose as the essence of our self, when we take all our power into use in an effortless way, and when we fully accept our own nature--including sex and sexuality, our purpose of life takes the form of a unique talent. Using this talent gives the experience of happiness. A person in his natural state of being uses his core talent in a conscious, joyful, and effortless way, contributing to the world the best he or she has to offer. Full expression of self happens when a person, in full acceptance of body and life, with whole-hearted intension, uses all his personal powers to realize his core talent and all associated talents, to contribute to his beloved and to the world. Thus, self-actualisation is a result of a person fully expressing and realizing his core talent. The theory of talent states that a core talent can be expressed optimally when a human being takes possession of a three-dimensional space with the axis of purpose, power and gender, as we have a threefold need: Acknowledging our core talent (our purpose of life) and intending it; Understanding our potential powers and manifesting them; Accepting our human form including our sex and expressing it. The first dimension is spiritual, the next dimension is mental, emotional and physical, and the third dimension is bodily and sexual. We manifest our talents in a giving movement from the bottom of our soul trough our biological nature onto the subject and object of the outer world. These three dimensions can be drawn as three axes, one saggital axis called purpose or love or me-you, one vertical axis called power or consciousness (light) or heaven-earth, and one horizontal axis called gender or joy or male-female. The three core dimensions of human existence are considered of equal importance for expression of our life purpose, life mission, or core talent. Each of the dimensions is connected to special needs. When these needs are not fulfilled, we suffer and if this suffering becomes unbearable we deny the dimension or a part of is. This is why the dimensions of purpose, power and gender become suppressed from our consciousness. (+info)
The life mission theory IV. Theory on child development.
(5/39)
We can identify five important needs that children have: the need for acknowledgment, acceptance, awareness or attention, respect, and care. If these needs are not met, children will modify themselves by denying central parts of their nature in order to adjust to their parents and the situation at large. When a child denies his or her talents, powers, and gender or aspects thereof, he or she loses quality of life, the ability to function, and physical or mental health. The loss of ability takes the form of diminished social ability, psychosexual potency, joy, energy, and fantasy while playing, as well as diminished ability to concentrate, focus, and learn. Many modifications result in a child with severely damaged self-confidence, self-worth, and poor performance. A child more or less deprived of self-worth cannot enjoy, give, or receive. A child deprived of emotions turns cold, rational, asocial, socially stiff, uncomfortable, and in the extreme case...intentionally "evil". When a child denies his or her own sex, it becomes invisible, uninteresting, and vague or becomes like the opposite sex in behavior and appearance. The general holistic solution to the vast diversity of symptoms in children with low quality of life is to improve the situation for the child and give the child the holding and support he or she needs. It is very important to realize that a negative belief often has survival value to the child as it helps the child to avoid taking responsibility for problems, which really belong to the parents or other adults. Children have a fine capability for spontaneous healing, and seem to enter this process more easily than adults, given sufficient holding. The symptoms of children with poor thriving ability are often difficult to understand, as they are caused by a complex combination of self-modification in five existential dimensions. This often leads to complex medical diagnosis, giving the idea that the child is sick and without therapeutic reach, while sufficient holding could solve the problem. If holding and support of the child is not enough, the situation must be carefully analyzed to find other possible causes of poor quality of life, health, and functional ability. Education of the parent in holding is often mandatory. Most children with bad thriving ability can thus be helped by simple means. (+info)
The life mission theory V. Theory of the anti-self (the shadow) or the evil side of man.
(6/39)
According to the life mission theory, the essence of man is his purpose of life, which comes into existence at conception. This first purpose is always positive and in support of life. This is not in accordance with the everyday experience that man also engages in evil enterprises born out of destructive intentions. This paper presents a theory about the evil side of man, called the "anti-self" (the shadow), because it mirrors the self and its purpose of life. The core of the anti-self is an evil and destructive intention opposite to the intention behind the life mission. The evil side of man arises when, as the life mission theory proclaims, man is denying his good, basic intention to avoid existential pain. The present theory of the anti-self claims that all the negative decisions accumulated throughout the personal history, sum up to a negative or dark anti-self, as complex, multifaceted, and complete as the self. All the negative decisions taken through personal history build this solid, negative, existential structure. The anti-self, or shadow as Carl Gustav Jung used to call it, is a precise reflection of man's basically good and constructive nature. When mapped, it seems that for most or even for all the many fine talents of man, there is a corresponding evil intention and talent in the person's anti-self. As man is as evil as he is good, he can only realize his good nature and constructive talents by making ethical choices. Ethics therefore seem to be of major importance to every patient or person engaged in the noble project of personal growth. Understanding the nature and structure of the evil side of man seems mandatory to every physician or therapist offering existential therapy to his patient. The theory of anti-self makes it possible to treat patients with destructive behavioral patterns, who want to be good deep in their heart, by helping them let go of their evil intentions. The anti-self also seems to explain the enigma of why human beings often commit suicide. Integrating the shadow often leads to dramatic, subjective experiences of ubiquitous light in an "unpersonal" form, of enlightenment, or of meeting light and consciousness in a personal, universal form, known as G-d. (+info)
Holistic medicine IV: principles of existential holistic group therapy and the holistic process of healing in a group setting.
(7/39)
In existential holistic group therapy, the whole person heals in accordance with the holistic process theory and the life mission theory. Existential group psychotherapy addresses the emotional aspect of the human mind related to death, freedom, isolation, and meaninglessness, while existential holistic group therapy addresses the state of the person"s wholeness. This includes the body, the person's philosophy of life, and often also love, purpose of life, and the spiritual dimension, to the same extent as it addresses the emotional psyche and sexuality, and it is thus much broader than traditional psychotherapy. Where existential psychotherapy is rather depressing concerning the fundamental human condition, existential holistic therapy conceives life to be basically good. The fundamentals in existential holistic therapy are that everybody has the potential for healing themselves to become loving, joyful, sexually attractive, strong, and gifted, which is a message that most patients welcome. While the patient is suffering and fighting to get through life, the most important job for the holistic therapist is to keep a positive perspective of life. In accordance with these fundamentals, many participants in holistic group therapy will have positive emotional experiences, often of an unknown intensity, and these experiences appear to transform their lives within only a few days or weeks of therapy. An important idea of the course is Bohm's concept of "holo-movement" in the group, resulting from intense coherence between the group members. When the group comes together, the individual will be linked to the totality and the great movement forward towards love, consciousness, and happiness will happen collectively--if it happens at all. This gives the individual the feeling that everything that happens is right, important, and valuable for all the participants at the same time. Native Americans and other premodern people refer to this experience as "the spiritual design". This design is actually an underlying regulation that appears when people, through their feelings and engagement for each other, tie the group together and engage their complex emotional intelligence. Practically, this means that all participants are sunk in the same information matrix, so that everybody learns from each other. Everything that happens in the perception of each trainee has immediate and developing relevance for him. Spontaneous healing happens far more effectively in a group setting, where all the participants stand together and support each other, than it does in the clinic, where the therapist is alone with the patient. A 5-day course in personal development can be compatible to a half year of holistic individual therapy. (+info)
Quality of life as medicine III. A qualitative analysis of the effect of a five-day intervention with existential holistic group therapy or a quality of life course as a modern rite of passage.
(8/39)
Existential group therapy seems to be a very efficient way of inducing the holistic state of healing, described in the holistic process theory of healing. We have designed a series of four quality of life (QOL) and health courses of 5-days duration called "Philosophy of Life that Heals--Courses in QOL and Personal Development". The four courses are meant to be taken over four consecutive years. They contain training in philosophy of life and existential theory as well as exercises in holding: awareness, respect, care, acknowledgment, and acceptance. The courses teach the participants respect, love, and intimacy; help them to draw on their seemingly unlimited hidden resources; and inspire them to take more responsibility for their own life. Exercises are accomplished with a partner chosen at the course as: (1) a person you like, (2) a person you do not know already, or (3) a person to whom you want to give help, support, and holding more than you want to get help from him or her. Pilot studies with 5-day quality of life interventions that combine training in quality of life philosophy with psychotherapy and bodywork have proved effective on patients with chronic pain and alcoholism. The present design aims to take this a step further and engage the patients in a process of personal growth that will last for years. The aim is to lead them to a stabile state of quality of life, health, and ability, from where they will not again fall into sickness and unhappiness. The focus of these courses is as much on prevention as is it on healing. The existential group therapy induces spontaneous healing of body, mind, and soul that seems to be highly efficient with hopefully lasting results. Every course is intended to give an immediate improvement in the quality of life, so its efficiency can be measured with the square curve paradigm. We have studied the participant"s accounts from their experience with the courses and have analyzed the remarkably large, qualitative changes in the state of being, quality of life, health, and consciousness, which many participants experience during the course. The long-term and preventative effects of the courses have yet to be documented. (+info)