Integrating Psychology and Spirituality?

Book excerpt: Gorsuch seeks to provide a thoughtful introduction to relating spirituality and psychology in a postmodern era. This is timely due to the considerable interest in spirituality, the ways psychology and religion can impact lives, and ways spirituality and psychology can be brought together in dialogue or integration. Gorsuch provides a basis from which to address the many practical concerns to which both psychology and spirituality speak. Practical issues are the ultimate concern of both psychology and spirituality. Gorsuch addresses such issues as examples along the way and in the final set of chapters, which introduce and discuss issues central to clinical psychology and those central to social psychology. Psychology provides an empirical base for many of his discussions, and he devises two methods of dialoging or integrating psychology and spirituality. Of particular interest to psychologists and providers of mental health services and to those involved with the intersection of science and religion.