Psychology, Religion and Spirituality

At a time when religious fundamentalism is having a huge impact upon the world, this book helps us to understand how people acquire, conceptualize and practice religion at both personal and social levels. Drawing on relevant research material, author David Fontana explores the effects of religious and spiritual belief on behavior, and on physical and psychological health. He outlines the various approaches to religious and spiritual experience, and examines the different forms such experience takes. He looks at religious and spiritual practices, such as prayer, meditation and ritual, and links religion and spirituality to the major psychological theories. This reader-friendly book will be of interest to clergy, professional psychologists, and students and teachers of psychology and religion, as well as to the general public.

David Fontana is a Chartered Psychologist and a Chartered Counselling Psychologist. He is a Fellow of the British Psychological Society, and was Founding Chairman of the Society’s Transpersonal Psychology Section. He holds a Ph.D. in Psychology, together with a number of other degrees and professional qualifications, and is currently Distinguished Visiting Fellow at Cardiff University and Visiting Professor of Transpersonal Psychology at Liverpool John Moores University. He has written widely on the psychology of spirituality and on the traditions and practices of the major Eastern and Western psycho-spiritual traditions. His 23 books are translated into 26 languages.