<p> Standards for integration of spirituality and religion within mental health training continue to be ambiguous. Although increased attention has incorporated such diversity into multiculturalism, proficiency remains inadequate among non-religiously affiliated individuals and institutions. This study examined competence levels utilizing the Revised Spiritual Competence Scale II (SCS-R-II) and the Spiritual and Religious Competency Assessment (SARCA). Participants were 125 students attending accredited counseling, psychology, and social work schools in the United States. Counselor trainees scored highest on both measures as did students with very strong personal religious affiliation and attendees of Christian affiliated schools. Implications and future recommendations are discussed.</p>

<p> Religion as culture shapes the worldview of its subscribers and thence attitude formation and preferences of individuals towards many topics including the environment. Research interest in the impact of religion soared in the late 1960s, in response to White's (1967) article in Science claiming that a huge burden of guilt for the environment crisis rested on the shoulders of Christianity. Although this Dominion Hypothesis highlights the contrast between Christianity and other religions, the contrast has not been addressed in systematic comparative cross-national research assessing whether Christians hold more negative environmental attitudes than other world religions. This dissertation fills that research gap. The Dominion Hypothesis does not exhaust the potential impacts of religion on environmentalism. For example, social psychology posits the importance of experience as well as of culture on attitudes about matters one encounters directly, so the dissertation posits the Direct Experience Hypothesis and confirms the differentiation of local from global environmental attitudes. Moreover, social psychology also directs our attention to the Reverence Hypothesis, that a subjective side effect of religiosity is reverence and responsibility for nature. To address the Dominion Hypothesis that Christians hold less environmentalist attitudes than their peers in other religious traditions, the direct experience effect, and the Reverence Hypothesis, this dissertation includes descriptive analysis, psychometric scale evaluations, OLS regression, and multilevel modeling of data from the pooled World Values Survey/European Values Survey. Findings are mixed on the Dominion Hypothesis, but consistently support the Direct Experience and Reverence Hypotheses. </p>

<p> The human psyche is continuously producing symbols. These representations are stilled, emotively energized moments of the external world. The proposition of this thesis is that when symbols are projected onto objects, they lose capacity to elicit subjective motivation for personal responsibility to Self and culture. This research examines the questions: Do you see what I see? How does symbol integration facilitate responsibility to Self and culture? Using hermeneutic methodology, this thesis explores the meaning-making function of symbol formation, demonstrating how, through the integration of once-projected symbols, the individual can experience individuation; the becoming of true Self. Other areas of examination include symbol in relation to sign and symbol: myth and metaphor; the Self; meaning making; sameness and otherness in the function of rituals; and impact of religion on culture. This investigation also focuses on psyche&rsquo;s creation of symbol and explores how an individual&rsquo;s ability to integrate archetypal energy facilitates integration and individuation. </p>

<p>The aim of this dissertation, Do No Harm: Trauma-Informed Lens for Trauma-Informed Ministry: A study of the Impact of the Helping Churches in Trauma Awareness Workshop (HC-TAW) on Trauma Awareness Among Predominantly African- and Caribbean-American leaders in Church of God 7th Day churches in the Bronx and Brooklyn, New York, is to conduct an experimental study assessing whether HC-TAW is an effective intervention to increase trauma awareness among participating leaders?pastors and lay leaders. The study used a trauma-informed quiz as a pretest to measure trauma awareness of 41 participants (participants from churches in the two experimental groups)) prior to participation in HC-TAW. The same trauma-informed quiz was given to participants as a posttest to assess whether change in levels of trauma awareness occurred. A control group of 10 participants also completed the trauma-informed quiz but did not participate in HC-TAW. Chapter 1 develops the purpose, goal, ministry context, and general scope of this study. Chapter 2 provides a review of germane literature related to the need for trauma awareness, nature and impact of psychological trauma, healing trauma, the fundamental elements of trauma-informed care (TIC)/trauma-informed ministry (TIM), and biblical and theological literature advocating for trauma-informed ministry. Chapter 3 sets forth the research methodology utilized in recruiting and selecting participants, description of instrument used to collect and measure data, and a description of how the intervention was executed. Chapter 4 presents an analysis of the findings. Chapter 5 assesses the data and points to strategies for areas of further research of trauma awareness among leaders in the Church of God 7th Day and leaders in other denominations or faith-based organizations.

<p> This hermeneutic phenomenological study explores the role of the sacred in engendering the courage to be embodied in adult survivors of severe sexual abuse. It adopts an interdisciplinary approach to depth psychology and mystical theology that utilizes the theories of D. W. Winnicott, C. G. Jung, and T. Merton to illuminate the dynamics of embodiment in clinical practice, focusing primarily on the clinical dyad. Through exploring the similarities and differences between potential space and creativity (Winnicott), the Self and Psyche (Jung), and the Trinity and the Holy Spirit (Merton), this study establishes that the spirit and the body is a false dichotomy; therefore, the sacred should enhance the courage to connect more deeply with the body, not less. This study further demonstrates that the body is critical to the development of healthy subjectivity, and that the sacred should never be used as a means to dissociate from the body. This study concludes that hope, faith, and love fuel the capacity for courage in both patient and clinician, and in the third area that is co-created between them. The sacred participates through nurturing hope, faith, and love by appearing as images, affects, and synchronicities, which thereby presents the clinician with a delicate task: How best to bring such manifestations to the patient&rsquo;s awareness in order to nurture healthy embodied subjectivity in the survivor of severe sexual abuse. </p>

<p>This interpretive phenomenological analysis research study articulates the experiences of 3 Christians who manifest secure attachment to God characteristics. Human infant attachment theory and subsequent attachment to God conceptualizations were the perspectives used in order to explore the phenomenon. Analysis of the data led to 4 emergent themes focused on the psychological implications of having a secure attachment to God: View of God as Kindhearted, View of Self Transformed by God, Theological Exploration without Fear, and Need for Closeness When Suffering. Findings indicated that participants experienced God as a loving parent who fully accepted an authentic self. Across time, participants were able to deconstruct theological concepts incongruent to life experiences and explore new theological ideas and practices without anxiety of experiencing negative responses from God. Participants? need for closeness to God when experiencing painful events, in particular when feeling powerless to fix the circumstances, was described as needing authentic conversation with God. These findings suggest that secure attachment to God may have psychological benefit and encourages clinicians to validate and explore attachment to God dynamics with clients who indicate having a relationship with God.

<p> One of the fundamental expectations in the New Testament is that every Christian will become more and more like Jesus Christ. This transformation is characterized by a growing capacity to love as the believer takes on the character of Christ. This change process is life-long, is referred to as progressive sanctification, and is the essence of discipleship. However, research indicates that many believers living in North America are not experiencing a high degree of personal transformation into the image of Christ. Despite trying harder and utilizing the plethora of good discipleship material that is available, change for many believers is largely unrealized. This is a problem that some refer to as the &ldquo;sanctification gap.&rdquo; </p><p> This project addresses the sanctification gap by identifying unresolved emotional pain as a barrier to Christ-like transformation. Specific to this project is a six-week curriculum for discipleship that addresses both the spiritual and emotional aspects essential for spiritual growth. Emotion is powerful and influences thought and behavior. Unresolved emotional pain often promotes distorted thoughts and feelings of shame and fear that in turn influence sinful behavior as a means to cope with or numb the pain. Sadly, this sinful behavior hinders the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit and consequently creates the sanctification gap. Therefore, to understand how emotion and thought work together to influence behavior will assist the believer in his or her discipleship to Jesus. </p><p> The curriculum for this project was pilot-tested with a group of male and female adult participants living in Orange County, California. The Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Personal Assessment by Peter Scazzero and Warren Bird was administered before and after this six-week program and revealed that participants experienced discernible growth in the areas of spiritual and emotional maturity that helped them bridge the sanctification gap.</p>

<p> Research investigating the impact of religion and religiosity on aggression and prosocial behavior is mixed. The reason for these inconsistent results may be due to the multifaceted nature of religion. This study was the first to investigate both the impact of different aspects of religion (e.g., spirituality, institutional religion, good and evil supernatural agents, etc.) as well as views of God as punitive on subsequent aggressive behavior. Results indicated that more punitive perceptions of God were correlated with lower levels of aggression. Furthermore, there was a marginal interaction between religious orientation and type of religious priming. Although simple effects and subsequent post-hoc tests did not reach standard levels of statistical significance, the direction of the effect for Christian participants was that priming with evil supernatural agents reduced aggressive behavior but this trend was in the opposite direction for non-Christians.</p>

<p> This study investigated the manifestations of the dead mother complex in chaplains. Dead mother complex is a phrase coined by Andre Green (2005) to describe the internal psychodynamic process of a person, who, during his or her formative years, experienced psychic absence from a primary caregiver. The research focused on hospital and hospice chaplains because of their possible affinity to the complex. The research questions for this dissertation were: What are chaplains' experiences of the dead mother complex (a) in their early formation, (b) in their significant relationships, (c) in their work as chaplains, and (d) in their relationship with God? This research sought to utilize reproducible methods of data collection regarding the dead mother complex. The phenomenological format and active imagination were used to procure data. Phenomenological methods of analyzing data resulted in a description of manifestations of dead mother complex experienced by chaplains. The findings provide new specific examples of the chaplains' lived experiences useful for psychologists and psychoanalysts who have patients with the dead mother complex. The importance of the role of presence is uncovered. This research also offers insights for chaplains regarding how their inner worlds relate to their vocations. Some pertinent myths and symbols are reviewed as they relate to the complex. . </p>

<p> The present study is an attempt to describe the perceptions on the part of congregants of the Black Missionary Baptist Church in New Britain, CT, with respect to the church's pursuit of social justice, measured in the midst of public rallies organized by the BMBC in the summer of 2013, protesting the acquittal of George Zimmerman, a white neighborhood watchman who shot black teenager Trayvon Martin. The researcher used three sources of data to measure perceptions (observations at the rally, a survey of, and interviews with, BMBC members, both during the time of the rally) and concluded that there is a basic foundational commitment to social justice, though there are indicators that the strength of this commitment is questionable. BMBC members were willing and able to attend and be engaged at a specified action-step with a social injustice symbol (like Trayvon Martin), but were less capable of following through or conceiving of action-steps beyond the rally.</p>