Spirit, Science, and Health: How the Spiritual Mind Fuels Physical Wellness [Hardcover]

Thomas G. Plante Ph.D. (Editor), Carl E. Thoresen (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0275995062 | ISBN-13: 978-0275995065 | Publication Date: June 30, 2007 | Edition: 1

From meditation to reciting mantras or praying, spirituality is more and more often being recognized for its beneficial effects on health. In this volume, a team of experts from across disciplines including psychology, medicine, nursing, public health, and pastoral care offer reader-friendly chapters showing the state of the art in understanding this connection. Chapters include attention to special populations such as youth, HIV/AIDS patients, cancer patients, and those in hospice care. Contributors, all members of the Spirituality and Health Institute at Santa Clara University, aim to use the scientific understanding of the spirituality/health connection to promote better health for the general public.

From meditation to reciting mantras or praying, spirituality is more and more often being recognized for its beneficial effects on health. In this volume, a team of experts from across disciplines including psychology, medicine, nursing, public health, and pastoral care offer reader-friendly chapters showing the state of the art in understanding this connection. Chapters include attention to special populations such as youth, HIV/AIDS patients, cancer patients, and those in hospice care. Contributors, all members of the Spirituality and Health Institute at Santa Clara University, aim to use the scientific understanding of the spirituality/health connection to promote better health for the general public. One focus of this volume is to show easy ways to incorporate spiritual practices in an environment that is often multicultural, multi-religious, stressful, hurried, and secular.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Medicine is increasingly embracing a health promotion rather than disease model. As associates with the Spirituality and Health Institute at Santa Clara U., Plante and Thoreson, introduce 14 chapters examining how the formerly little-researched psychosocial factor of spirituality/religion relates to health in general and to specific patient populations. Social cognitive theory, to which the contributions of preface writer Albert Bandura Stanford U.) are well-known, is used to explain the demonstrated health effects of such practices as meditation and holy name repetition. Case examples treat ethical pitfalls."

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SciTech Book News

"This book could serve very effectively as a brief reference handbook or as an introductory textbook for the emerging field of spirituality and health--now a component in the curriculum of many schools of nursing, medicine, and other health-related professions, as well as in some colleges of liberal arts or education. The book is a particularly well-integrated collection of short reports on the current state of the field. It covers concepts and assessment instruments typically used in spirituality-and-health research. It also covers basic techniques for self-management and personal development (such as prayer and meditation) that long have been part of spiritual traditions, and increasingly are recognized as having relevance for health maintenance too. The book concludes with consideration of general ethical issues and with problems characteristic of specific population groups, e.g., adolescents, the elderly, HIV/AIDS sufferers, and cancer patients. Contributors treat these issues with discernment, respect, and appropriate expertise….Recommended. All levels."

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Choice

Review

"Spirit, Science and Health: How the Spiritual Mind Fuels Physical Wellness, edited by two of the top researchers and authorities in the field, covers a wide range of key topics on the frontier of the discipline of spirituality and health. It is an outstanding contribution to the literature that is a must read for skeptics and believers alike in this growing field. Chapters on prayer, meditation, measurement, spiritual growth, spiritual interventions, ethics of integrating spirituality into patient care and special issues related to adolescents, persons who are HIV positive or have AIDS, or cancer, provide a cohesive menu of must-read topics. Each of these chapters is written by authors who are immensely knowledgeable with a depth of research and clinical experience. These are the trendsetters in spirituality and health. This volume will be one that won't stay on your shelf for very long."

(

Harold G. Koenig, M.D., Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Associate Professor of Medicine Duke University

)

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 248 pages
• Publisher: Praeger; 1 edition (June 30, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0275995062
• ISBN-13: 978-0275995065
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,564,910 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Thomas G. Plante, Ph.D., ABPP is professor of psychology at Santa Clara University and adjunct clinical professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University School of Medicine. He has served as psychology department chair, acting dean of the school of education, counseling psychology, and pastoral ministries, and director of the spirituality and health institute at Santa Clara University. He currently serves as Vice-Chair of the National Review Board for the Protection of Children and Youth for the U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops and President-elect of the psychology and religion division (division 36) of the American Psychological Association. He was born and raised in Rhode Island and received his ScB degree in psychology from Brown University, his M.A. and PhD degrees in clinical psychology from the University of Kansas, and his clinical internship and postdoctoral fellowship in clinical and health psychology from Yale University. Prior to coming to Santa Clara in 1994, he was a staff psychologist and on the clinical faculty at Stanford University School of Medicine and director of mental health services at the Children's Health Council in Palo Alto, California. He has authored, co-authored, edited, or co-edited 14 books including Sin against the Innocents: Sexual Abuse by Priests and the Role of the Catholic Church (2004, Greenwood), Bless Me Father For I Have Sinned: Perspectives on Sexual Abuse Committed by Roman Catholic Priests (1999, Greenwood), Faith and Health: Psychological Perspectives (2001, Guilford), Do the Right Thing: Living Ethically in an Unethical World (2004, New Harbinger), Contemporary Clinical Psychology (1999, 2005, 2010, Wiley), Mental Disorders of the New Millennium (Vols. I, II, and III, 2006, Greenwood), Spirit, Science and Health: How the Spiritual Mind Fuels Physical Wellness (2007, Greenwood), Spiritual Practices in Psychotherapy: Thirteen Tools for Enhancing Psychological Health (2009, American Psychological Association), and Contemplative Practices in Action: Spirituality, Meditation, and Health (2010, Greenwood) as well as published over 150 scholarly professional journal articles and book chapters. His area of clinical and research interest focuses on stress and coping, the influence of aerobic exercise and perceived fitness on psychological functioning, faith and health outcomes, psychological issues among Catholic clergy and laypersons, and ethical decision making. He has been featured in numerous media outlets including Time Magazine, CNN, NBC Nightly News, the PBS News Hour, New York Times, USA Today, British Broadcasting Company, National Public Radio, among many others. He has evaluated or treated more than 600 priests and applicants to the priesthood and deaconate and has served as a consultant for a number of Church dioceses and religious orders. Time Magazine referred to him (April 1, 2002) as one of "three leading (American) Catholics." He maintains a private practice in Menlo Park, CA where he lives with his wife, Lori (also a psychologist) and son, Zachary. His hobbies include running and managing a small home vineyard where he and his family grow syrah grapes for wine making under the TLZ Plante Family Vineyard label.

Customer Reviews

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5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Used Book, August 7, 2011

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This review is from: Spirit, Science, and Health: How the Spiritual Mind Fuels Physical Wellness (Hardcover)

I do satisfied with this book. Although it was used book, the condition was still in 100% neat and tidy. The price is also resonable to a student like me :)