Religion, Spirituality, and Masculinity

New Insights for Counselors

Anthony Isacco, Jay C. Wade

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9781351865197
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Mental Health in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Religion, Spirituality, and Masculinity provides concrete, practical suggestions for mental health professionals. Drawing from decades of clinical experience working with men and interdisciplinary insights from psychology, sociology, religion, and more, the authors explore some of the most salient aspects of men's mental and spiritual health.

Chapters focus on topics such as men's relationships to religion and to masculinity, shame, and forgiveness, and concerns such as pornography use and drifting between religious affiliations. In addition to relevant theory and research, each chapter includes a case study and clear, science-informed strategies that can be incorporated into everyday practice in ways that improve men's health and wellbeing.

1 How Do Men Use Religion?

Men seeking counseling enter your office with a variety of religious and spiritual affiliations, practices, and beliefs. This chapter provides an overview of those affiliations, practices, and beliefs that are important to their worldview and health. Religion and spirituality are cultural factors that need to be addressed in counseling through assessment, conceptualization, and intervention. Integration of such cultural factors helps to facilitate rapport building, client retention, and positive therapeutic outcomes (Ponterotto, 2008). Our prevailing beliefs that drive this chapter are (a) religion and spirituality are salient cultural factors for many men, (b) men use religion and spirituality in both positive and negative ways, and (c) as a result, we provide counselors with resources to assess, conceptualize, and intervene with male clients in a manner that is responsive to their religion and spirituality.

Religious Affiliations

There are thousands of religions practiced all over the world. It would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to provide information on every religious affiliation. Most literature on the topic categorizes religious affiliations into five “major” world religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. There are hundreds of denominations and sects that are categorized under the five major world religions, resulting in the diverse practice of the religions. Part of this chapter will focus on the five major world religions, the associated religious beliefs and practices exhibited by male clients, and the pathways to health outcomes.

According to a 2012 report, the PEW Research Center on Religion and Public Life estimated that eight out of ten people in the world identify with a religious group (Pew Research Center, 2012). A growing number of people (one in six) are religiously unaffiliated (e.g., agnostics, atheists); these individuals may reject all forms of religion and spirituality while some still adhere to spiritual values, beliefs, and behaviors (Pew Research Center, 2012). Chapter 9 focuses on religiously unaffiliated and religious drifters in more detail. The Pew-Templeton Global Religious Future Projects (Pew Research Center, 2017) estimates that by the year 2020, 31.1% of the world’s population will be Christian, 24.9% Muslims, 15.6% unaffiliated, 15.2% Hindu, 6.6% Buddhist, 5.6% folk religions, <1% Jewish, and <1% other. The demographic statistics are different in the United States: 70.6% Christian, 22.8% are unaffiliated, 1.9% Jewish, <1% Hindu, <1% Muslim, and <1% Buddhist (Pew Research Center, 2015). The point of both sets of statistics is to understand that most people affiliate with a major religion. More specifically, the Pew statistics imply that many counseling clients will be affiliated with Christianity or unaffiliated with a major world religion.

The unaffiliated category includes atheists, agnostics, and those without an affiliation to a major world religion. The unaffiliated clients may not identify with a major world religion but are not necessarily non-religious or non-spiritual. In fact, unaffiliated clients are likely to have religious and spiritual experiences, beliefs, and practices that need to be assessed. Those who are not currently affiliated with a major world religion may have been at some point and present with experiences and emotions relevant to therapy (Plante, 2009). Thus, religion can still be a salient factor for men even if they do not affiliate with a major world religion.

Considering Gender with Religious Affiliation, Beliefs, and Practices

Internationally and within the United States, there are notable gender differences in religious affiliation, beliefs, and practices. In general, more women are religiously affiliated compared to men (Hvidtjørn, Hjelmborg, Skytthe, Christensen, & Hvidt, 2014; Trzebiatowska & Bruce, 2012). In the United States, less men compared to women attend weekly religious services, pray, meditate, and read scripture on a daily or weekly basis (Pew Research Center, 2016). Taken together, the general narrative from the known statistics is that women are more religious than men. This has been considered somewhat of a strange finding because most deity figures are male (e.g., Jesus in Christianity) and most religious leaders are male. When it comes down to counting who is in the pews, more women than men are showing up. Yes, there is some truth to those statistics, but it would be an inaccurate over-generalization of the statistics to conclude that all men are not as religious as all women. There are nuances in the statistics, and the lived experiences of diverse men indicate that men use religion in positive and negative ways. The statistics have prompted investigations into why there are gender differences in religious affiliations, beliefs, and practices between men and women (Trzebiatowska & Bruce, 2012). For example, earlier scholarship has reported that men adhering to traditional masculinity are more likely to be less religious (Miller & Hoffmann, 1995; Robbins, Francis, Haley, & Kay, 2001; Sullins, 2006; Thompson, 1991). To expand, some men may view religious activities as feminine, i.e., “unmasculine,” and not participate in order to preserve their sense of manhood (Robertson, 2013). To that point, more men identified as atheists and religiously unaffiliated compared to women in the United States (Pew Research Center, 2016). That theoretical interpretation is indicative of the kind of confluence of masculinity and religiosity that men experience and will be discussed in greater depth in subsequent chapters of this book.

Research across disciplines has found that men use religion and spirituality in positive and negative ways. When considering the positive and negative ways that men use religion, we suggest a similar philosophy as Pargament (2002) by encouraging counselors to explore how helpful or harmful a particular form of religious expression is for their mental health, depending on their presenting concerns and contextual factors. This section helps counselors to understand how men use religion and spirituality based on the common constructs found consistently in the psychological science. These constructs are general enough to be found across the five major world religions, but are expressed differently depending on the religious affiliation, individual male client, and other contextual factors. We start with the positive ways such as religious coping, religious support, to find meaning in life, and to develop masculine roles. We categorized a construct as ‘positive’ if it is (a) readily apparent, (b) consistently associated with positive outcomes, and (c) generally considered adaptive and healthy.

Religious Coping

Religious/spiritual coping is defined as “efforts to understand and deal with life stressors in ways related to the sacred” (Pargament, Feuille, & Burdzy, 2011, p. 52). Some examples of religious coping include asking God for help and surrendering control to a higher power. Coping with stress and psychological distress through religious and spiritual means is a highly researched area and has been consistently associated with positive health outcomes (Pargament et al., 2011). As a result, prayer, meditation, mindfulness, and other similar spiritual practices are often found on popular websites listing “the best” stress management/relaxation techniques (e.g., Moninger, 2017).

The prevailing conceptualization of religious coping entails positive and negative components. In this section, we focus on the positive components and discuss negative coping later in the chapter. Men’s view of God is an important factor when determining if religious coping is categorized as positive or negative. One’s view of God is often referred to as God Image, which refers to “a psychological working internal model of the sort of person that the individual imagines God to be” (Lawrence, 1997, p. 214). Chapter 3 delves deeper into God Image. Positive religious coping is accompanied by a view of God (i.e., the sacred) as loving, supportive, and involved while negative religious coping stems from perceiving God as punitive, judging, and abandoning.

Men have typically come into my (Isacco) office only after exhausting all of their usual coping skills and reverting to maladaptive ways of coping. They have tried exercising and talking to a friend and have turned to alcohol, drugs, and violence in other cases. Nothing helped, and the distress worsened. The usual coping skills were not helping with the new problems. Counselors may not immediately suggest religious coping as a new skill to address the presenting concerns. However, some men may benefit from using religious coping to alleviate symptoms. For example, male clients affiliated with a world religion (e.g., Christianity) that emphasizes a relationship with God may benefit from increased intercessory prayer. Religious coping can also include the use of support from religion and spirituality.

Religious Support

Religious support is based on the broader understanding of social support. Social support is a well-known psychological construct and distinct from coping constructs despite similar effects on mental health. Religious support is defined as the “perception of available tangible and/or emotional support within a religious context” and may entail perceived support from God, fellow believers, and/or religious leaders (Lazar & Bjorck, 2016, p. 235). Thus, one can see that there are different sources of support that can be addressed in counseling with men. In addition, faith activities such as services (e.g., mass in the Catholic Church), prayer groups, volunteerism, faith classes (e.g., Bible studies), and social activities in religious settings all contribute to the development of a social network and perceptions of religious support. The social sciences have often measured the frequency of engagement in religious activities as a key factor to psychological health outcomes, but the support from those activities is a primary mechanism accounting for positive outcomes.

Men with religious affiliations have natural communities and structures in place to seek support from when experiencing distress. For example, men in London considered Buddhism to be helpful to alleviating distress through meditation and belonging to a supportive community that promoted positive health behaviors (Lomas, Cartwright, Edginton, & Ridge, 2014). In this example, the religious support derived from fellow believers rather than religious leaders and a relationship with God. That makes sense because Buddhism has less emphasis on formal religious structures and a relationship with a higher power/God while still having components of religious support (community) and religious coping (meditation) in place to enhance men’s health. The importance of social support in the religious context to men’s health is a shared mechanism among men of various religious affiliations. In an exhaustive review of over 100 studies of religion, spirituality, and men’s health, social support from religion and spirituality was a basic mechanism that helped to explain positive health outcomes (Garfield, Isacco, & Sahker, 2013).

In a presentation about his clinical experiences with men at the National Psychotherapy with Men conference (2014), Dr. Fred Rabinowitz discussed the lack of friendships in men’s lives and described the sense of loneliness and isolation that men feel who come into his office for counseling. Loneliness and isolation in a world full of people are existential issues, which often correlate to spirituality. Religion and spirituality are one way to find social connections, a place in the world, and avoid the loneliness that men may explore in counseling. In a study of over 1,000 men and women, participation in religious activities with other people (e.g., events, bible study, choir practice) at least once a week was correlated with lower psychological distress, greater sense of happiness, and better self-report health (Maselko & Kubzansky, 2006). The impact of participation in religious activities was greater for the men compared to the women in the study. Thus, the search for meaning for men is still as relevant today as it was in the past. Religion and spirituality are naturally ‘places’ to find meaning in life.

Meaning in Life

Meaning in life refers to one’s sense of purpose, value, and importance with their life. Inherently, meaning in life is good and certainly better than a lack of meaning in life. Similar to religious coping and religious support, meaning in life is also a well-researched and clinically used construct. Meaning in life has roots in established psychological theories such as Victor Frankl’s logotherapy and similar existential theories (Frankl, 1959). In addition, meaning in life is embedded within an established paradigm of religion that has three components: extrinsic, intrinsic, and quest. Intrinsic religiousness refers to using religion to understand life and provide a basis for meaning in life (Allport & Ross, 1967). Similarly, spirituality is predominantly measured through two components: religious wellbeing and existential wellbeing, with the latter referring to a sense of life purpose (Jurkovic & Walker, 2006). Thus, religion and spirituality are inherently defined by providing people with meaning in life.

Having meaning in life is part of psychological wellbeing and a protective factor from adverse experiences. For example, in a quantitative study of 226 men with HIV/AIDs, male patients that exhibited spiritual growth such as meaning attached to their suffering and spiritual acceptance, experienced higher health-related quality of life, better mental and emotional wellbeing, improved social functioning, more energy and positive affect (Wiggins-Frame, Uphold, Shehan, & Reid, 2005). Taken together, it is not surprising that many men find meaning in life within their religion and spirituality, which contributes to positive outcomes.

Just as having meaning in life is part of psychological wellbeing, a lack of meaning in life is typically a sign of life dissatisfaction, angst, and despair. In 2014, CNN published a photojournalism story entitled America’s lost boys (Patterson, 2014). The pictures tell a story of a generation of young men in the United States who lack meaning in their lives and struggle with unemployment, low outcome expectations, and a missing sense of identity. The phrase ‘lost boys’ is a play on words in reference to Peter Pan, i.e., the group of males that never grew up while living in a fantasy world in Neverland. The CNN story did not explicitly address their religion/spirituality, but indirectly illustrates how young men have lost faith in something greater, bigger, and more powerful. That something just may be the sacred. Lacking meaning in life seems like a natural consequence without a connection to the sacred and/or religious community. Referring back to Frankel’s logotherapy, meaning in life is possible during times of suffering and the solution to existential vacuums.

Masculine Roles

Men use religion and spirituality to learn about manhood and how to assume masculine roles. This makes a lot of sense since the world religions discussed earlier have some combination of a God, deity figure, moral code, beliefs, and practices that points followers of those religions to a better way of living life. For example, Hinduism identifies three paths to transformation and liberation, Buddhists often meditate in front of an image of Buddha for spiritual advancement, Judaism believes that their God (Yahweh) provided commandments and the Torah for the chosen people to use to live more closely to God’s design, Christianity calls people to love God and their neighbor as Jesus Christ taught, and Muslims go to Allah to achieve a life of felicity (Ludwig, 1996). These are brief examples that highlight the broader point – the world religions are structured and intended to promote virtuous behavior, personal transformation, and common good among people. In a qualitative study of 33 African-American men from Black churches (i.e., Protestant churches that historically and/or currently serve African-Americans) in the United States, participants described how their Church promoted marriage commitment and family stability (Collins & Perry, 2015). To quote one participant from t...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• About the Authors
• Series Editor’s Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 How Do Men Use Religion?
• 2 How Do Men Use Masculinity?
• 3 Men and Their Relationship with God
• 4 Pray and Go to Church?
• 5 Men’s Shame
• 6 Men and Forgiveness
• 7 Pornography Use and Spiritual Issues with Men
• 8 Gay Men and Religion
• 9 Religious Drifters
• 10 Creating More Positive Pathways That Improve Men’s Health
• Index