Place, Spirituality, and Well-Being: A Global and Multidisciplinary Approach
This book synthesizes perspectives on how ‘place’ is deeply intertwined with our spirituality and well-being. Split into three sections, this book brings together contributions from global scholars across a range of disciplines to unravel how the personal, social, and cultural spheres of place shape our spiritual experiences and overall well-being. It is an essential read for those interested in enriching their knowledge of the linkages between place, spirituality, and well-being, while also providing a foundation for future research on place and its intersections with both spirituality and well-being.
1. Toward a Global and Multidisciplinary Understanding of Place, Religion/Spirituality, and Well-
Being
Part I Personal Engagements: Spiritual Ties to Place and Well-Being
2. Worship Space Attachment as a Potential Contributor to Spiritual Growth
3. Place, Spirituality, and Wellness in the East and the West: Exploring Psychological Mechanisms of
the Legendary Gyanganj4. Where Heaven Meets Earth: Theological Reflections on Landscape, Social Ecology, Biocentric
Spirituality, and Well-being5. Racial Justice Protests Create Spaces of Hope and Healing: The Racialization of Space and Trauma
in Contexts of Racial Tensions6. House Churches and Place Attachment: A Case Study with Iranian Christians in Scotland
7. Architecture, Time, and Well-Being: Toward Transcendence
Part II Social Resilience: Spirituality and Well-Being amid Adversity
Part II Social Resilience: Spirituality and Well-Being amid Adversity
8. Embodied Spirituality and Health amidst Place Confinement and Disruptions during the COVID-19
Pandemic: Critical Analysis of the Literature and Development of a Conceptual Framework9. Can Prayer During COVID-19 Home Confinement Support Psychological Health After Lockdowns
End? A Longitudinal Study of UK Adults10. Displacement, Fragmentation, and Well-Being of Ghanaian Church Leaders and Older Adult
Christians during a Global Pandemic11. Religious Communities and Well-Being during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Practical Theological
Consideration of Place12. The Early Church and Community Resilience in the Late Antique Levant: An Archaeological
Perspective
Part III Cultural Connections: Sacred Spaces, Tourism, and Well-Being
13. Managing the Sacred: Online Narratives of Well-Being in a Japanese Heritage Context
14. Clans and Spiritual Space: A Case Study of Guandi Temple in an Ancient Hakka Town in South
China15. Religious Tourism: Exploring Experiences of Spirituality, Place Attachment, and Well-Being in
Zimbabwe16. Healing Systems of Well-being and People-Place Interactions: Complexity, Context, and
Connections
Place and Post-Pandemic Flourishing: Disruption, Adjustment, and Healthy Behaviors.
This book rekindles the well-known connection between people and place in the context of a global pandemic. The chapters are divided into two sections. In the first section, “Place Attachment During a Pandemic,” we review the nature of the COVID-19 pandemic and the extent of its impact on place attachment and human-environment interactions. We examine how restrictions in mobility and environmental changes can have a significant psychological burden on people who are dealing with the effect of place attachment disruption that arises during a pandemic. In the second section, “Adjusting to Place Attachment Disruption During and After a Pandemic,” we focus on adaptive processes and responses that could enable people to adjust positively to place attachment disruption. We conclude the book by discussing the potential for pro-environmental behavior to promote place attachment and flourishing in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic by introducing an integrative framework of place flourishing and exploring its implications for theory, research, policy, and practice.
- Counted V., Cowden R.G., Ramkissoon H. (2021) Protest, Despair, and Detachment: Reparative Responses to Place Attachment Disruptions During a Pandemic. In: Place and Post-Pandemic Flourishing. Springer https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82580-5_5
- Cowden R.G., Counted V., Ramkissoon H. (2021) Transcending Place Attachment Disruption: Strengthening Character During a Pandemic. In: Place and Post-Pandemic Flourishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82580-5_7
- Cowden R.G., Counted V., Ramkissoon H. (2021) Adapting to Place Attachment Disruption During a Pandemic: From Resource Loss to Resilience. In: Place and Post-Pandemic Flourishing.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82580-5_6
- Cowden R.G., Counted V., Ramkissoon H. (2021) Place Attachment and Suffering During a Pandemic. In: Place and Post-Pandemic Flourishing. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82580-5_4
- Counted V., Cowden R.G., Ramkissoon H. (2021) Place Attachment and Resource Loss During a Pandemic: An Ecological Systems Perspective. In: Place and Post-Pandemic Flourishing. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82580-5_3
- Counted V., Cowden R.G., Ramkissoon H. (2021) Place Attachment During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Scoping Review. In: Place and Post-Pandemic Flourishing.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82580-5_2
- Counted V., Cowden R.G., Ramkissoon H. (2021) Place Attachment During a Pandemic: An Introduction. In: Place and Post-Pandemic Flourishing. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82580-5_1
- Counted V., Cowden R.G., Ramkissoon H. (2021) Pro-environmental Behavior, Place Attachment, and Human Flourishing: Implications for Post-pandemic Research, Theory, Practice, and Policy. In: Place and Post-Pandemic Flourishing. Springer https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82580-5_8
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The Roots of Radicalization: Disrupted Attachment Systems and Displacement
There is an undoubted movement of thought towards a restatement of radicalization and extremism along the lines of recent psychological achievements. This has already taken place, to a large extent, in social and behavioral sciences where concepts such as religion, place, and people are discussed as objects of attachment. In this book, I try to write for those who wish to make a study of the problems of radicalization from a psychological point of view without any prior knowledge of the attachment terminology. The most interesting parts of this book, I believe, are those in which I link acts of radicalization to people’s disrupted attachment to religious figures, geographical places, and important people and things in one’s life while defending this argument from the charge of being no more than attachment-related psychopathology. The book treats the subject of radicalization with great insight and empathy and interprets it in the light of recent cases of radicalization and terrorism around the world. This book will be of interest to government agencies, policy makers, and researchers and students in the fields of social, health, and behavioral sciences.
- Introduction
- Chapter 1: The Attachment Behavioral System
- Chapter 2: Patterns of Adult Attachment
- Chapter 3: Defining Attachment Disruptions
- Chapter 4: Radicalization, Disrupted Attachment, And Reparative Responses
- Chapter 5: Protest and Radicalization
- Chapter 6: Radicalization, Psychopathology, and Despair
- Chapter 7: Detachment and Deradicalization
- Conclusion
- References
- About the Author
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The Psychology of Religion and Place: Emerging Perspectives.
This book examines the role of religious and spiritual experiences in people’s understanding of their environment, and how their place experiences are transformed in the process. The contributors consider how understandings and experiences of religious and place connections are motivated by the need to seek and maintain contact with perceptual objects, so as to form meaningful relationship experiences. The purpose is not to engage in comparative religion or analyse different religious traditions in relation to place, but rather to understand how people’s perceptions of physical, imaginary and transpersonal objects shape their religious and place experiences. This book is one of the first scholarly attempts to discuss the psychological links between place and religious experiences. The chapters provide insights for understanding how people’s experiences with geographical places and the sacred serve as agencies for meaning-making, pro-social behaviour, and psychological adjustment in everyday life.
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Experiencing God in a foreign land: Theoretical and empirical explorations on the psychological links between religion and place among dispersed people
This study investigates the intersection of religion and place in psychological perspective. First, religion is conceptualised as an attachment experience involving how migrants and people of the diaspora seek and maintain attachment to God as a surrogate attachment, one who helps them navigate the uncertainties of place change. Second, people-place experience is discussed as an attachment experience, such that place becomes an object of exploration and attachment seeking, depending on the individual’s needs and curiosity. These two waves of adult attachment experiences are both explored historically (using biblical interpretation of place events in the bible) and empirically (using cross-sectional data from 175 African migrant populations in the Netherlands). Third, empirical results support the link between religious and place attachment, such that dispersed people of African background in Dutch society saw themselves turning to God as a surrogate attachment amidst negative place experiences (e.g. racial discrimination, feelings of insecurity about their future). There are significant variations in the study results based on demographic background factors such as region of residence, length of stay, and region of origin. What is consistent in the overall study is the role of seeking/maintaining attachment (to God) as a secure base from which to explore life opportunities in a foreign land. Turning away from such attachment security can be traumatic for migrants in the face of a rising wave of anti-migrant sentiments across western Europe.
- Prologue – By the rivers of Babylon
- Chapter 1 Introduction
PART 1: Theoretical Explorations
- Chapter 2 Making Sense of Place Attachment: Towards a holistic understanding of people-place
relationships and experiences - Chapter 3 Place Attachment in the Bible: A Judeo-Christian historical perspective
- Chapter 4 Place Spirituality: An attachment perspective
- Chapter 5 The Circle of Place Spirituality (CoPS): Towards an attachment and exploration
motivational systems approach in the psychology of religion
PART 2: Empirical Applications
- Chapter 6 Migration and Socio-demographic Factors Associated with Sense of Place Attitudes of
Sub-Saharan Africans in Northern and Western Netherlands - Chapter 7 The role of spiritual attachment in strengthening sense of place in a migration context:
main and interactive effects - Chapter 8 Length of Stay, Place of Residence, and Seeking Attachment to God in a Foreign Land:
The moderating effect of religious background
PART 3: Study Implications and General
Discussion- Chapter 9 A cascade of parallel processes: re-evaluating the psychological links between religion
and place
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From A Weakspot To A Hotshot: Life-changing insights on how to lead and live a complete life.
The bible tells us in Revelation 21 of a city, beautiful and complete in its dimensions. The glory of this city, according to John of Patmos who saw this city, was in its completeness. It was not partial nor one-sided but complete in all three sides of its dimensions. In describing this beautiful city, John says that its length, breadth, and height are of equal sizes and complete on all sides. In other words, no side was smaller or bigger than the other. What John was really saying was that life as it should be is a journey that should be complete on all sides. Life should be lived creatively in length (the length of life), empathically in breadth (the breadth of life), and spiritually in height (the height of life) in order to be beautiful and complete as the city envisioned by John of Patmos. In this book, the author takes the reader on a self-discovery journey on personal leadership using practical, real-life experiences and insights to draw the attention of the reader on how to lead and live a complete life. The book gives a spotlight analysis on what it means to live life at three levels of significance and it is designed to challenge the reader to lead, love, and live better in length, breadth, and height.
- Preface
- Introduction
Part 1: The Length of Life
- The Length of Life.…………………………7
- Emphasizing Choice……………………….12
- We Can’t Live in the Past.…………………..15
- Problems Are Meant To Fix Us……..……….20
- Mishandling Difficulties.……………………27
- Juxtaposing Truth and Reality………………35
- Identity: Misguided Taglines……………….40
- Seeing Your Own Blindness……45
- Think Big But Don’t Talk Big………………49
- Doing The Right Thing(s)…………….56
- Never Good Enough……………………….62
- On Living Your Grief………………67
- Play through the Pain……………………….71
- Abnormality And Normality……………….76
- 5 Compulsory Tests to Success…………….80
- Leaders Are Gift Gamblers…………………85
- Managing Criticism As A Leader……………90
- Three Kinds Of People…………………..…94
- Comfort is Priceless – Go for It!……………….100
- On Redefining Change…………………….105
- Five Secrets To Excellence Of Self…………110
- 7 Qualities To Produce Results………………….118
Part 2: The Breadth of Life
- The Breadth of Life………………………129
- Opportunities Don’t Float in the Sky……..136
- 3 People That Will Make A Difference……..142
- Want People To Listen To You?……………….147
- How To Effectively Impact Others…………..151
- The Glory & Loneliness Of Leadership…….158
- On Leading Leaders and Talents………….163
- Don’t be Good, Rather do Good………………170
- Beware of Self-Deception…………………….175
- On Family…………………………………179
- Silence and Mystery…………………………………..184
- Look Down to Go Up!……………………………..188
- Respect Yourself Enough to Walk Away…193
- A ‘Wise Fool’ for the Sake of Others……..200
Part 3: The Height of Life
- The Height of Life………………………..210
- Victim of Purpose…………………………215
- Why You Are Not Amazing……………….223
- Having a Vision of Victory……………………233
- The God of the Gaps…………………….240
- On God and Success……………………..248
- On Praying ‘Our Father………………….253
- How to Pray………………………….256
- Come Back to Church……………………261
- A Complete Life: Epilogue……………….270