Considered the theoretical basis of Carl Gustav Jung's depth psychology, the theory of archetypes posits that the unconscious mind is populated by archetypal images that exert a profound influence on the human psyche. In the case of the psychotherapist, who acts as a mediator of the process of self-discovery in the analytic process, the tendency of the psyche to constellate the archetype of the wounded healer is observed. Based on this reflection, this article aims to draw aparallel around the archetypal representation of the wounded healer and the figure of the analyst in the therapeutic process, and, therefore, this bibliographic study based on Jungian hermeneutics starts from a reflection on the myth of Chiron, proposing as a conclusion the idea that when the therapist manages to establish a deep contact with his inner wound, he becomes more skilled and capable of assist the patient in the process of activating their inner healer.
Spirituality plays an essential role in moments of suffering, conflict, and finitude. This article presents the Diamond Model, proposed by Carlo Leget in the Netherlands, as a framework for spiritual care aimed at elderly people in palliative contexts. The model provides a space for compassionate dialogue and attentive listening that enables the expression of feelings, values, and beliefs, fostering the reconstruction of meaning in the face of pain, hope, and faith. The objective of the study was to understand how the Diamond Model can contribute to the integral care of the human person by integrating theological, bioethical, and existential dimensions. The research adopted a qualitative and exploratory approach, using content analysis to identify categories emerging from dialogues with elderly individuals receiving palliative care. The findings indicate that the model facilitates access to the inner world, reconciliation with oneself, with others, and with the transcendent, thus promoting dignity and meaning in the experience of living and dying.
This article proposes a reading of Mc 5:21-43 based on narrative analysis, with theological dialogue, focusing on the central characters -Jairus, the woman who suffers the flow of blood and Jesus - and their configurations of conflict, action and transformation. The pericope is approached according to a "sandwich" structure, highlighting intertwinings and parallels between the two stories. It is assumed that the narrator guides the reader to realize that, despite different social positions, both Jairus and the woman have their prayers answered by Jesus. The methodology adopted follows the assumptions of narrative criticism, with an emphasis on the perspectives of the characters and the narrator, in dialogue with authors such as Tolmie, Brown, Keener and Champlin, in addition to patristic sources. The investigation indicates that, in the narrative development, faith emerges in situations of suffering, and that Jesus' action - according to the Christian theological reading - welcomes, heals and contributes to the restoration of dignity. In hermeneutic terms, and in accordance with Christian tradition, this encounter can be interpreted as capable of giving new meaning to existences affected by exclusion and suffering.
At the crossroads of culture and power, with religion serving as the structuring rhetoric of social disputes and negotiations, the body can be perceived as a device of control but also as a resource of alterity. This text proposes a reflection on different concepts of the body in order to demonstrate how diverse processes of existence grounded in the body can represent both inequalities and diversities. Giorgio Agamben, David Le Breton, and Michel Foucault offer theoretical systematizations that help illuminate the arbitrary perception of the body within the Brazilian nation-state and the transgressive dimensions of Brazilian identity. In the conclusion, three different body-based concepts are proposed that can be applied in the Study of Religion as ways of perceiving, recognizing, and legitimizing the religious multiplicity present in the country, as well as highlighting how the body is intrinsic to social negotiations.
Suicide bereavement is marked by a high degree of emotional, social, and spiritual complexity. Unlike other forms of loss, this type of grief is permeated by ambiguous feelings such as guilt, shame, anger, and abandonment, often intensified by social stigma and religious silence. This article aims to discuss postvention as a strategy for comprehensive care for survivors-family members, friends, and communities affected by suicide-based on a narrative literature review, with emphasis on Christian Spirituality as a dimension of care. The discussion unfolds in three parts: first, it presents the specificities and impacts of suicide bereavement; second, it explores postvention as an ethical and therapeutic practice of meaning reconstruction; and third, it examines the role of faith communities and pastoral counseling as spaces of support and hope. The study highlights that comprehensive care for survivors requires the integration of Psychology, Pastoral Theology, and Public Health, recognizing spirituality as an essential resource for subjective and community reconstruction.
This article aims to discuss the relationship between religion, spirituality and health, with palliative care as the horizon for discussion, although this is not mentioned exhaustively. Given the apparent lack of differentiation between religious care and spiritual care in healthcare approaches, the perspective chosen here will address the differentiation between these two types of care, understanding that this distinction provides different diagnostic perspectives and, therefore, different types of care. Thus, based on a bibliographic methodology, we will first discuss the difference between religion and spirituality. Next, types of religious suffering and types of spiritual suffering will be raised. The conclusion is that this differentiated approach is important for meeting the spiritual needs of patients and their specificities, especially in palliative care, where these dimensions manifest themselves more intensely.
This study investigated how the spirituality and religiosity (S/R) of family members of palliative care patients influence their perceptions and decision-making in end-of-life contexts. Using a qualitative approach with mixed methods, 12 family members were interviewed in hospitals in Curitiba, Brazil. In addition to the interviews, data were collected on sociodemographic profiles, the centrality of religiosity, and the use of spiritual/religious coping. The results indicate that S/R is central in the participants' lives and directly influences their coping mechanisms and treatment decisions, although it is rarely addressed by healthcare professionals. Spiritual conflicts emerge in situations of intense suffering, requiring specialized support. The analysis revealed tensions between autonomy, religious beliefs, and medical authority, raising important bioethical questions. Neglecting the spiritual dimension in clinical decision-making can compromise holistic care. The study concludes that training in spirituality and bioethics is essential for palliative care teams.
This article examines the conditions of possibility for hospitality, as articulated by Jean-Louis Chr & eacute;tien, as they are actualized in individuals with severe or profound intellectual disabilities. Chr & eacute;tien's philosophical framework emphasizes the relational dynamic between humanity and the divine, proposing that divine hospitality is accessible to all human beings. The study identifies five key conditions for such a divine encounter: a response to God's call, the communal dimension of hospitality, the role of prayer, the significance of the human body, and the centrality of fragility. It is argued that individuals with severe intellectual disabilities can participate in this divine hospitality by virtue of their inherent humanity and vulnerability. The excess of God, as the primary agent of the relational dynamic, places all human beings on equal footing. The article further contends that Chr & eacute;tien's concepts must be reinterpreted in order to accommodate the conditions of possibility applicable to these individuals, suggesting that asymmetrical relationships grounded in respect and love may suffice for genuine encounters with the divine. Ultimately, the work underscores the role of divine grace and the mystery of faith as essential to understanding the possibility of hospitality in the context of profound disability.
This article aims to identify medical students' perceptions regarding the role of spirituality in patients' health, considering the framework of bioethics. It is an exploratory and descriptive qualitative study conducted with students from a private higher education medical school. Data collection was carried out through interviews, and the results were analysed using Bardin's Content Analysis technique. The findings revealed that spirituality is associated with dimensions of transcendence, subjectivity, and trans-subjectivity. Most participants acknowledged the relevance of spirituality in the therapeutic process and believed that it can influence how patients respond to diagnoses, as well as contribute positively to their recovery and well-being.
This article proposes a systematic analysis of the phenomenon of Spirituality as a transformative possibility for suicidal ideation harboured by certain older persons. This reflection is permeated by a methodology aiming to reveal that the individual develops a marked lack of vitality and creativity, and allows itself to be carried away by inertia, closing in on itself; the essential & eacute;lan is shattered, resulting in a loss of meaning in life, and the desire for suicide emerges as a plausible possibility. The older person suffering from invasive thoughts, in seeking to experience peace of mind, may come to assume their finitude and transcend themselves. The outcome of this article is an attempt to reveal that the older person may gain awareness that they belong to a growing segment of the population and, even while walking the road of the excluded, will, with resilience, gradually find their own destiny.
This study investigated the relationships between religious identity and gender/sexual orientation among sexual minorities in Brazil, focusing on religious transit and multiple religious belonging. A total of 151 participants answered questionnaires about their previous and current religious identities, the reasons for switching, and the impact of their sexuality. The results suggest significant differences in religious transit according to identity. Qualitative analysis revealed three central categories: rupture and redefinition of spirituality, ambivalence in religious spaces, and suffering and conflict with religious morality. Approximately one third of the sample reported multiple religious belonging, a proportion three times higher than the national average. There was a trend toward disaffiliation from religion altogether and from traditional Christian denominations, with increased affiliation to Afro-Brazilian, Buddhist, Indigenous, and esoteric religions. Religious transit emerged as a strategy for maintaining mental health, and religious was understood as a continuous rather than a dichotomous variable.
With the growing presence of Yoga in the Unified Health System (SUS), a critical analysis of its appropriate conceptualization beyond its governmental classification as Integrative and Complementary Health Practice (PICS) has become important. This need arises from the diversity of understandings and applications of Yoga in this context, ranging from instrumentalized frameworks ('physical activity'), its connection as a 'therapeutic resource' of Ayurvedic medical rationality and 'Yoga as a medicine', to conceptual proposals such as 'Integrative Body Practice'. This essay critically analyzes these definitions, discussing advantages and disadvantages of its uses in the SUS. In addition to these approaches, Yoga is explored as an ethic of affirmation of autonomy. It is concluded that such an ethic, understood as a universal effort to reduce systemic harm and foster an anti-colonial stance, enables individuals and communities to seek well-being and autonomy even in the face of unequal and alienating social structures.
This article analyzes the contribution of religious communities to the prevention and postvention of youth suicide, based on the concept of belonging. It discusses young people's fundamental need for reference points in their human and spiritual maturation, and the role of the religious community as a space not only for socialization but also for identification with values and beliefs, and for the construction of life projects. Through a bibliographic analysis, the study explores the definition of religious belonging, its relationship with the meaning of life and the overcoming of mental disorders, and the need to belong from the perspectives of theology and health sciences. It is concluded that the religious community acts as a vital social support, founded on relationships and a theology that emphasizes the dignity of the human person, thus offering a valuable protective factor against suicide.
This article will briefly contextualize the way in which the Uterus has been transformed into a symbol of spirituality in contemporary times. The main reason for such symbolization, according to the groups that practice it, is the search for alternative uterine health and spiritual dignity for women. Thus, the objective of this work is to list three uterine diseases, such as dysmenorrhea, fibroids and endometriosis, which have affected a large number of women, showing the two different ways in which these diseases have been approached. On the one hand, some data from western gynecological medicine on these diseases will be explained, and on the other hand, the New Age approach to uterine therapies will be shown, exploring its healing proposals, and presenting the approach of Ayurvedic Medicine. Finally, this change in the explanation of uterine diseases will be analyzed, using the conceptual frameworks of anthropologist Fran & ccedil;ois Laplantine, in parallel with the change in paradigms of spirituality and health in contemporary times.
This historiographical essay aims to contextually investigate the Israelite women's daily life, considering their technical activities. It hypothesizes that the female potency to act-agence-is prominent in the long-term transformations of the structures of political entities of the Levant through the establishment of new physical spaces, knowledge networks, and innovative techniques. The investigation will be distinctive, using as its source a fragmentary Qumran text, 1 Samuel 8:13 [8:9-14, 16-20], but the comparative and historical methodological approach, combined with recent ethnological, historical, and religious science research on the role of women in primitive communities, and political entities of the ancient Near East, initially aims to analyze the controversy between supporters of the intertribal patriarchal aristocracy and the monarchical political system, and then to highlight several groups of professional women workers at the confluence of the technical development of gender.
This article discusses the therapeutic dimensions of Haitian Vodou, considering its articulation between spirituality, body, health, illness and death. It starts from the understanding of Vodou as a symbolic and ritual system capable of offering spiritual, social and emotional support to its devotees in the face of different sufferings. Through rituals of incorporation, offerings, consultations with the Lwas, treatments using baths and medicinal flora, the lives of the faithful are reorganized in a broader perspective, which goes far beyond the disease fixed in a specific organ. For Vodou, illness presents itself as a symptom of a symbolic imbalance that affects all of the person's relationships with the world in which they live: social, family, spiritual, social and emotional. And it is the spirits Lwas and the Gedes, ancestors, who mediate between the visible and invisible world, who translate human suffering and seek ritual solutions.
Classical sociology devoted considerable attention to religion, and its reflections were decisive for the development of the sociology of religion. However, in recent decades, the discipline seems to have distanced itself from general sociology, reducing the space for the religious phenomenon. Inspired by Furseth and Repstad's (2023) proposal to bring these fields closer together, this article seeks to engage in dialogue with Louis Althusser and Anthony Giddens, authors who are not commonly cited in the study of religion. In Althusser, we analyze the theory of the ideological apparatuses of the state, in particular the transition from the central role of the Church to the school apparatus after the French Revolution, as key to understanding the processes of secularization and secularism. In Giddens, we explore modernity and globalization as forces that reconfigure religious space, generating both movements of adaptation and reactions, such as religious fundamentalism, and reopening the debate on the limits of secularization theory in the face of desecularization. Thus, the article highlights how general sociological theories can enrich the understanding of contemporary religious phenomena, articulating secularization, secularism, globalization, and fundamentalism.
The study investigates, through the lens of the Archaeology of Religion, the intersections between Religious Studies and Archaeology, considering religious materialities as mediators of sacred experiences. A theoretical-critical review was carried out, integrating the contributions of David Morgan, Birgit Meyer, Alfred Gell, and Bruno Latour through four key concepts: the sacred gaze, sensory mediation, the agency of objects, and actor-network theory. The research indicated that images, objects, bodies, and sacred spaces are not mere devotional representations, but singular elements that generate a sense of presence and interference as formative agents of lived religion. The findings suggest that the Archaeology of Religion, by integrating these frameworks, significantly broadens the methodological horizons of the disciplines, proving its applicability from historical and ethnographic contexts to strictu sensu archaeology, highlighting materiality as a crucial dimension for understanding ritual performance and lived religion. Sacred objects, therefore, are not limited to accessories or inactive symbols; they are part of an intricate web of mediation and intermediation, which provides a broader understanding of religion from the interdisciplinary perspective presented here, focused on the interconnection between rituals, materialities, and meanings.
This article aims to analyze the two creatures called monsters in Revelation 13:1-18 from the perspective of monster theory, as a means of reading the monster as a way of demarcating the boundaries in the theology and worldview of Revelation. Based on theories relating to the monstrous and exegetical literature concerning the book of Revelation, the article indicates that these monsters rise up to challenge heaven and threaten the faithful and are allies of the "great red dragon," the main opponent of the heavenly forces in the book of Revelation. The monstrous hybrid figures that break conventional boundaries, signaling their mysterious identities. They transcend the boundaries between the divine and earthly worlds as they move from the periphery the center. The hybridity and liminality that characterize them are central components of the rhetoric of Revelation, which seeks both to convince its audience that the Roman imperial cult was a form of idolatry and to lead them to direct all their loyalty to God and the Lamb.
