Mental Health & Wellness

Trauma and depression can be a gateway to spiritual awakening.

Science has shown that through suffering we can deepen our spiritual awareness to a more awakened understanding of life. Our work in mental health seeks to put that science into practice. An effective partnership exists between traditional mental health and the clergy for people who are deeply engaged in their faith tradition. However, there are many people who wish to integrate spirituality outside of a faith tradition into treatment, prevention, and wellness work. The Spirituality Mind Body Institute is a hub for the formation of innovation in spiritually integrated wellness work.

We have created the spiritual awareness pedagogy, which has been offered as a training in spirituality and psychotherapy through the American Psychological Association (APA). This pedagogy has become the basis for our Awakened Awareness program, which we have offered in undergraduate and graduate settings, at The Pentagon, and in industry settings. Delivered in the language of life, Awakened Awareness wakes us up to our own capacity, to knowing our brain as having the potential to be an awakened brain and our own inner life as the docking station for awareness.

We are also a research center for the iteration and development of this work so we may help practitioners and investigators to evolve in their work.

Research demonstrates that spirituality and religion positively impact health and wellness across the continuum of care. In prevention, treatment, and the experience of severe and recurrent mental illness, both primary and co-morbid outcomes are improved when the patient and their family receive spiritual and religious support. Understanding the critical intersections of spirituality and mental health can increase the overall effectiveness and quality of treatment across an individual’s continuum of care.