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  “In summary, in this section, we have learned more about Centering Prayer by comparingit with mindfulness, a well-researched mindful practice. First, we notice that both types of contemplation have a similar goal; that is, helping practitioners wake up to who they are” (Blanton, 2011, p. 140).   “Mindfulness and Centering Prayer both share the […]

Mechanism of Action             Bingaman (2015) explored the mechanism of action that underlies the effectiveness of embodied mindfulness practices from a pastoral counseling vantage point. The third wave utilizes acceptance, distress tolerance, commitment, and presence to facilitate healing. MBCT and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) both focus on reducing experiential avoidance. This reduces the stress […]

Pentecostal Faith Healing and Complementary Therapies. Brown (2014) has been following the charismatic and Pentecostal revivals sweeping North America for more than 10 years. During this time, she has noted an overlap between CTs and charismatics. Often, these conservative believers get disillusioned with modern medicine. Brown noted that Pentecostals tend to view spiritual healing in […]

Trauma-Sensitive Yoga Therapy. Chanler (2017) advocated for the use of mindfulness as a tool to heal enmeshed interpersonal and family relationships. She used somatic awareness to help disentangled specifically from mother-daughter enmeshment. Ong (2021) and Ong et al. (2019) described trauma-sensitive yoga (TSY). This somatic healing method is specifically geared toward C-PTSD by increasing awareness, […]

Betrayal Trauma A further subset of C-PTSD is betrayal trauma. Freyd et al. (2007) described betrayal trauma as a phenomenon of attachment failure. A child must create maladaptive survival strategies to survive abusive caregiving by a primary attachment figure. These coping mechanisms continue well into adulthood. These adult survivors who have experienced much betrayal can […]

Attachment-Rooted Familial Substance Use Disorder. Substance use disorder (SUD) is a primary culprit of familial trauma often rooted in attachment dysfunction. Rasmussen et al. (2018) found that the prevention of childhood trauma can reduce SUD. Conversely, SUD clients should also get screened for childhood trauma and then treated with proper attachment-rooted interventions to increase recovery […]

The future of this new age of American spirituality rests on the ability of all parties to enter the conversation with an ability to get to the bottom of the issue of Christian-suitability of CAM practices without further accusations of heresy, faddism, or appropriation. Instead, the CAM mechanism of action ought to get critiqued without […]

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION Introduction The study surveyed a large body of research on three topics: (a) Christian ministry and pastoral counseling, (b) complex relational and family trauma, and (c) complementary and alternative medicine. The topic of this study is—The new age of Christian healing and spirituality: A meta-synthesis exploring the efficacy of complementary therapies for […]