Extending religious and spiritual practices to mental health settings: a qualitative exploration of five experienced international practitioners

Shikha Malviya; Pamela Meredith; Barbra Zupan

doi:10.1080/13674676.2025.2544133

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Extending religious and spiritual practices to mental health settings: a qualitative exploration of five experienced international practitioners

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Extending religious and spiritual practices to mental health settings: a qualitative exploration of five experienced international practitioners

Shikha Malviya, Pamela Meredith and Barbra Zupan

Mental Health, Religion & Culture, Vol.Advanced access

08-Oct-2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13674676.2025.2544133

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Abstract

mental health care

religious practices

spiritual practices

mental health interventions

Despite evidence of the mental health benefits of religious/spiritual practices, it remains unclear how they support mental health within religions, and whether these practices can or should be used outside the context of religions. In-depth interviews were conducted with a purposeful sample of five people from different locations of the world, who were highly experienced practitioners of religious/spiritual practices within the relevant religious contexts. Using reflexive thematic analysis, two overarching themes were identified: (1) Mental well-being through engaging in religious/spiritual practices; and (2) Religious/spiritual practices as mental health interventions. Within a religion, religious/spiritual practices support mental health through both religious and physical pathways. When used outside the religion, practitioners may not benefit from the religious aspects of these religious/spiritual practices but may still benefit from the physical aspects. While generally positive about using religious/spiritual practices as mental health interventions, participants suggested interventions should be provided by trained professionals, and only if acceptable to recipients.

Details

Title: Extending religious and spiritual practices to mental health settings: a qualitative exploration of five experienced international practitioners
Authors: Shikha Malviya (Corresponding Author) - University of Southern Queensland
Pamela Meredith - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Health - Occupational Therapy
Barbra Zupan - Central Queensland University
Publication details: Mental Health, Religion & Culture, Vol.Advanced access
Publisher: Routledge
DOI: 10.1080/13674676.2025.2544133
ISSN: 1469-9737; 1367-4676
Copyright note: © 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
Organisation Unit: School of Health - Occupational Therapy; Cancer Research Cluster
Language: English
Record Identifier: 991173176902621
Output Type: Journal article

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