Abstract

This thesis explores the use of spirituality in mainstream medical discourse. Both discourse analysis and socio-historical analysis are applied to understand how spirituality is used in medicine and the ways in which medical professionals construct its meaning and application in the areas of practice, research, and training. Through socio-historical analysis this thesis regards the construction of spirituality and its various influences beginning in the mid to late nineteenth century that help shape its use today in the medical discourse. As a result of the influences, various connotations arise within each of the sub-discourses in medicine. This variation leads to the construction of medicine’s own adaptation of spirituality, as Medical Spirituality. Criticism arises when incongruences within the medical discourse are further analyzed. Further study of the construction and use of spirituality in medicine is encouraged, most especially, with an open dialogue between the field of religious studies and the discipline of medicine.