THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SPIRITUALITY

This book is well structured and easy to read. It sorts its material effortlessly into straightforward categories and carries the reader painlessly along. Each chapter concludes with a helpful summary and exercises to enable the reader to incorporate its teachings into their life. It is in places delightfully illustrated with both personal and clinical anecdote, and with some examples from published sources such as Barack Obama's life. The chapter on the author's own teaching programme for medical students using a refreshingly simple and effective approach to taking a spiritual history was particularly welcome – I only wish such a programme were universally in evidence! The content is organised around a modified version of Fowler's stages of faith used by Culliford to track a universally applicable path towards spiritual maturity. The scene is set in Part 1, and Part 2 takes us through the stages in order, starting with a chapter on children's spirituality, an area I know too little about, illustrated by an interesting study by Adams, Hyde and Woolley. In Part 3, entitled Remedies, we are recommended means to follow this path of spiritual development, for instance, meditation, which is introduced with a usefully down to earth focus. The argument is positive and all encompassing, and contains many good features. Why do I find it so unconvincing? Of course, as a psychologist, I do have a problem with the word 'psychology' in the title, as there is little here that I would recognise as such. References to psychologists are venerable or obscure, and methodologically empirical grounding is thin, with heavy reliance on classifications, systems and plausibility. But that is just a psychologist's quibble, and for an avowedly popular work, a minor problem. Why am I not then swept along by Culliford's cheerful confidence and ebullience, by the sheer symmetry of all those stages and classifications? I read on and suddenly I am happy. I have encountered William James, a psychologist I both recognise and revere (albeit vintage, 1902) and better still, recall that his work, The Varieties of Religious Experience, holds the key to my malaise. James (1902) makes this wonderful distinction between the religion of the healthy minded, the 'once born', and the more morbid, sick soul, the 'twice born'. When I first read this as a gloomy teenager, clinging to Dostoievski and Schubert's Winterreise while my contemporaries bopped to the Beatles, 'twice born' spelt instant recognition. And it is not all bad news – twice born happiness, though arising out of radical pessimism, is all the sharper for it. (James, Lectures IV – VII). The missing dimension in Culliford's book was revealed, and it fits. There is a section on mystical experience, but nothing here about the different quality of that experience. No hint of the Dark Night of the Soul, or the sort of spiritual dangers that very properly exercise the mystical writers. The shadow is conveniently swept into the 'pathology' bin, leaving the way clear for healthy minded spirituality. There is barely a mention of the concept of spiritual emergency and the likes of Grof (Grof 1990) and Lukoff (1985) do not figure. This one sided perspective is smoothly achieved by the way in which spirituality is defined in order to leave no room for the discordant. The actual definitions, e.g. 'spirituality concerns wholeness and unification of opposites' p. 204, are unexceptionable. It is what they assume and what they exclude that is significant. The spiritual values listed on p.114 remind me of the virtues in a medieval psychomachia. Spiritual means good. Similarly, the developmental path so confidently laid out goes in one direction – towards greater individuality (admittedly with a consciousness of connectedness), e.g. 'meditation allows a person a new, individual, perspective, liberated from the attachments formed by years of conditioning' p. 211. Working in the NHS where cultural awareness is one of the great drivers behind recognition of the value of spirituality, this sits uneasily as a very Western perspective. I suppose the assumption that bothers me is that this Buddhist tinged, individualistic creed must be universally applicable. What about family and community loyalty? What about Abrahamic zeal for justice, the rebel in me asks? However, this does not take away from the charms of this eminently accessible book; it is simply necessary to recognise its limitations. For instance, in the context of the contemporary NHS it feels out of date. It fails to mention the Recovery Approach (e.g. see Shepherd, Boardman, & Slade, 2008), that other great Trojan Horse for getting spirituality onto the agenda along with cultural awareness, and does not reflect the huge impact that the introduction of mindfulness is having, even in the most acute and chronic settings. To understand this phenomenon, a clearer distinction between therapeutically applied mindfulness and meditation than available in the book is necessary. In conclusion, I can unreservedly recommend this book to all healthily-minded, spiritually inclined people – only not to miscreants like myself!

Grof, C, Grof, S, (1990) The Stormy Search for the Self: Understanding and Living with Spiritual Emergency. Los Angeles: Jeremy P. Tarcher. James, W, (1902). The Varieties of Religious Experience. New York, Longmans. Lukoff, D, (1985) The diagnosis of mystical experiences with psychotic features. Journal of Transpersonal Psychology. 17(2), 155 - 81. Shepherd, G., Boardman, J., & Slade, M. (2008). Making Recovery a Reality. London: Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health.