Original Research
Narrating spiritual well-being in relationship to positive psychology and religion
Koers - Bulletin for Christian Scholarship/Bulletin vir Christelike Wetenskap | Vol 74, No 1-2 | a115 |
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4102/koers.v74i1/2.115
| © 2009 B. van Rooyen, R.B.I. Beukes
| This work is licensed under CC Attribution 4.0
Submitted: 26 July 2009 | Published: 26 July 2009
Submitted: 26 July 2009 | Published: 26 July 2009
About the author(s)
B. van Rooyen, Department of Psychology, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South AfricaR.B.I. Beukes, Department of Psychology, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa
Full Text:
PDF (135KB)Abstract
Constructed as new and located in the discourse of positive psychology, “spiritual well-being” is a signifier with a (his)story in which one possible reading is highlighted in this postmodern (de)constructive narrative. The construction of “spiritual + well-being” could be narrated as a secularisation of the religious by positivist psy-complex knowledges, where spiritual well-being is reconstructed as a measurable outcome. Or it could be nar-rated as a “spiritualisation” of the psy-complex by religious knowledges, with measurable well-being becoming dependent on the pursuit of the postmodern, multiple-storied spiritual/ religious features. As the psy-complex has followed medicine from a focus on pathology to a focus on holistic wellness, it has found itself in the religious realm which it has simultaneously centred and marginalised. Additionally, as the psy-complex has moved from measuring illness to measuring wellness, it could be described as having constructed new categories of non-well-being or ill-being.
Keywords
Positive Psychology; Psy-Complex; Religion; Spiritual Well-Being
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