Artigos

It is observed that there is a significant increase in scientific publications on the subject of spirituality and religiosity in the health area. Such studies show that patients would like this topic to be addressed in their psychotherapy care, but it is identified that there is a lack of adequate training to carry out these issues for psychologists. So, this article aims to verify the effectiveness of an online training on the clinical management of religiosity, spirituality, secularity, and unusual experiences in psychotherapy for 46 Brazilian psychotherapist psychologists. As a result, we were able to observe the statistically significant increase in the total CRESEAP score, indicating that the competencies measured were satisfactorily developed. The P-DUREL (IR) scale was positively correlated in the pre-test with the CRESEAP subscale “Therapist’s Spirituality in the Therapeutic Relationship” before training and after, ceased to exist, demonstrating that the participants’ spiritual and religious beliefs were no longer interfering in the clinical practice. The ARES scale was positively related to the “Differential Diagnosis” subscale in the pre-test, and in the post-test, this association ceased to exist, indicating that all psychotherapists can perform the differential diagnosis, regardless of their faith. Therefore, the online training proved to be effective for developing spiritual and religious competencies in Brazilian psychotherapists, offering evidence-based resources to support professional performance on this topic. It is suggested that other studies be carried out with a larger number of participants and with comparative groups of therapists (working with different clinical approaches of psychotherapy, clinical experiences, and atheists).

Spiritual and religious experiences (SREs) are common subjective phenomena related to the awareness of transcendence, which transforms one's perception of life, death and suffering. Despite the high prevalence of SREs worldwide, not enough studies have been conducted beyond Europe and North America. To fill this gap, this study investigates the prevalence of SREs in Brazil and their association with socio-demographic variables. This online cross-sectional study includes participants from all regions of Brazil. Sixteen SREs were investigated, being categorized into 4 groups: mystical, mediumistic, psi-related and past life/near-death experiences. Prevalence was calculated as percentages and multinomial logistic regression models were used. A total of 1,053 Brazilians were included; 92% reported one SRE in their lifetime and 47.5% experienced at least one SRE frequently. Participants reported having had at least one mystical experience (35%), one psi-related experience (27.7%), and one mediumistic experience (11%). Half the sample had “felt the presence of a dead person” and 70% experienced precognitive dreams at least once. In a multivariate analysis, SREs were associated with the female gender but showed no associations with income, education, employment status and ethnicity. Mystical experiences were associated with age 55 and older. In summary, SREs are very prevalent across different strata of the population, and deserve more attention from researchers and clinicians in order to clarify their nature and implications for mental health care and research in Brazil.

Nonordinary experiences (NOEs), such as hearing voices or dissolution of the self, are more common than typically assumed yet poorly understood, and their effect on mental health underexplored. We present the topological structure of a range of NOEs and their differential relationship with mental health in a representative sample of Brazilian adults for race, sex, region, and age (N = 878). A network analysis revealed three coherent clusters, indicating that specific NOEs tend to cooccur, hinting at possible biological or cultural underlying mechanisms. This advances previous research that typically treated experiences in isolation and instead suggests a coherent experience structure. Individual experiences within clusters showed both positive and negative associations with depression scores in particular challenging simplistic explanations of NOEs as either pathological or spiritually enriching. Our findings highlight the need for research regarding the structure and nature of NOEs to help researchers and clinicians better understand their implications for mental health. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)