Issues of Divine Healing in Psychotherapy: Opening a Dialog.

The article examines the critical issues related to the existence of divine healing in psychotherapy. The flurry of astounding discoveries in medicine of curing illness and eradicating seemingly invincible diseases doused the efficacy of divine healing. A meta-analysis of 29 earlier studies involving approximately 126,000 patients indicated that the odds of survival were significantly greater for people with higher scores on measures of religious participation than for people who had lower scores, even after controlling for a variety of social and health-related variables. It is important to examine any relationship between religion or spirituality, and experiences such as divine healing because there is empirical support for the relationship, and there seems to be incongruity between what many Americans think and what professionals often believe. The article informs that it has been scientifically documented that persons who are religious or pray for divine healing are more likely to show remission of depression or cancer than their counterparts, but science cannot present any evidence that helps us understand the nature or process of healing.