Research Symposium Program - Individual Details

The Overlap of Theology and Psychology

Abstract

This research covers the overlap of theology and psychology in a clinical setting to encourage the collaboration and cross-education of both fields. Data was collected from chaplains who, in their career use both psychology and theology when dealing with patients. It was collected through a survey sent out to the Ascension Sacred Heart Hospital system and analyzed the lived experience and personal feelings of the chaplains surveyed. The means by which data was processed was by the use of a hermeneutic analysis of their experiences and their personal feelings of the integration, which was analyzed from a statistical approach to identify what the overall study believed. I found that although there is significant overlap between the field's methods and how the chaplains feel regarding the two, they still maintain significant differences in practices. While the methods that pertain to providing comfort or processing information remain similar in both fields, each has its limit before they are beyond the scope of their office. This is significant because it shows that there is a significant overlap between the fields, which would benefit from further interdisciplinary education, which could produce more counselors going forward who can look at things from both a psychological perspective along with that of a theological perspective.

Keywords: Theology, Psychology, Clinical, Chaplain