Research Methods in Clinical Psychospirituality

Although most people acknowledge that the reality they live has three interconnecting spheres of experience-the physical, the mental or psychological, and the numinous or spiritual-the paradigm of scientific materialism has come to exercise a dominating influence over the ways we value, perceive and even conceptualize these perennially interconnecting spheres of experience. Scientific materialism has greatly devalued and even questioned the reality and legitimacy of the spiritual dimension of human experience. This paper supports the position that experience in the realms of the physical, the mental, and the spiritual are all dimensions human science and knowledge can and must explore, but that the criterions and canons of validity and verification of their disciplines and methodologies, are subject to the particular dictates and circumstances of each of these realms of experience.