Qualitative methods and ‘the (partly) ineffable’ in psychological research on religion and spirituality

Abstract

Historically, religious and spiritual issues have been marginalized within academic psychology. Even with the advent of the psychology of religion, some important research topics and questions have remained marginalized because of the domain’s enthusiastic embrace of a positivist-empiricist framework. This article considers what qualitative methods can offer psychological research on religion and spirituality, focusing on the challenges of exploring religious or spiritual concepts and experiences that may prove difficult to capture in language.

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