The Body, the Mind, and the Spirit: Including the Spiritual Domain in Mental Health Care


Author: Jessica Van Denend1, Kayla Ford2, Pauline Berg2, Ellen L Edens2,3, James Cooke2

Affiliation: <sup>1</sup> VA Connecticut Healthcare System, 950 Campbell Avenue, West Haven, CT, 06516, USA. Jessica.vandenend@va.gov.

<sup>2</sup> VA Connecticut Healthcare System, 950 Campbell Avenue, West Haven, CT, 06516, USA.

<sup>3</sup> Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA.
Conference/Journal: J Relig Health
Date published: 2022 Jul 19
Other:
  Special Notes: doi: 10.1007/s10943-022-01609-2.   ,  Word Count: 138  
    This article supports the expansion of Engel's (Science (AAAS) 196(4286):129-136, 1977) biopsychosocial model into a biopsychosocial-spiritual model, as Sulmasy (The Gerontologist 42(5):24-33, 2002) and others have suggested. It utilizes case studies to describe five areas of clinical work within mental health (religious grandiosity, depression and grief, demoralization and suicidality, moral injury, and opioid use disorder) with emerging evidence for the inclusion of the spiritual domain in addition to the biological, psychological, and social. For each clinical area, an underutilization of the spiritual domain is compared with a more developed and integrated use. An argument is made for continuing to develop, understand, and utilize a biopsychosocial-spiritual model in mental health.



Keywords: Biopsychosocial-spiritual model; COVID-19; Chaplaincy; Demoralization; Depression; Grief; Moral injury; Opioid use disorder; Religious grandiosity; Spiritual care; Spiritual domain; Spiritually-integrated care; Substance use disorder; Suicidality.



PMID: 35852727 DOI: 10.1007/s10943-022-01609-2