DEFINING SPIRITUAL HEALING FOR MORE COMPREHENSIVE UNDERSTANDING OF THE UNDERLYING CONCEPT WITH FRESH PERSPECTIVES IN INTERVENTIONAL PRACTICES ADOPTED IN HEALTH AND WELLNESS - A CIS GUIDED NARRATIVE REVIEW
Soumya Tripathy1 Prakash Chandra Panda2 Pratyush Mishra*3
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) April 1, 2026 preprint DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.19435718 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Narrative review |
|---|---|
| Citations | 1 |
| Key findings | Argues that spiritual healing is best understood as a layered, multilevel, context-sensitive process through which individuals or communities restore existential coherence via relational, embodied, symbolic, contemplative, and not essentially religious practices. The authors report convergence across sources on inner life, meaning-making, connectedness, transcendence, and integration, and contend that the concept cannot be reduced to religion, private belief, or therapeutic language. |
Abstract
Spiritual healing is widely referenced in health and wellness discourse; yet, its conceptual boundaries remain unclear and are often reduced to religion, private belief, or therapeutic language. This critical interpretative synthesis (CIS)-aligned narrative review sought to provide a comprehensive understanding of spiritual healing by integrating linguistic, etymological, philosophical, psychological, civilizational, consciousness-oriented, and health-related perspectives. A multidisciplinary, concept-led search was conducted between January and February 2026, and 75 references were selected for conceptual relevance, theoretical richness, historical depth, and interpretation value. The literature underwent recursive thematic analysis. The review found that spirituality and spiritual healing are best understood as layered rather than fixed constructs. Recurring domains included definitional plurality, the distinction yet overlap between spirituality and religion, selfhood and meaning, relational and narrative healing, embodied and symbolic practice, sociocultural embeddedness, clinical translation, quantum-consciousness-oriented expansion, and methodological tension. Ancient civilizational traditions situated healing within moral, ritual, cosmological, and embodied frameworks, whereas contemporary health literature recast spiritual healing as an ethically bounded care domain. The strongest convergences centred on the inner life, meaning-making, connectedness, transcendence, restoration of coherence, and movement from fragmentation to integration. Spiritual healing emerges not as a singular doctrine or non-material abstraction, but as a multilevel, context-sensitive process through which persons or communities restore existential coherence through relational, embodied, symbolic, contemplative, and not essentially religious practices. This narrative review offers a robust conceptual foundation as well as fresh perspectives for further scholarship and intervention practices related to spiritual healing in health and wellness.