Responding to Spiritual Struggles: Experiential Avoidance and Mindfulness in Adjustment

Research and theory have demonstrated that spiritual struggles are robustly tied to distress and ill health.Growth and positive outcomes are also possible.However, there is little research illuminating the factors that contribute to growth or decline in the wake of spiritual struggles.Mindfulness and Acceptance, as conceptualized in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, have been tied to positive and negative adjustment, respectively.The present study was designed to examine the relationships between experiential avoidance, mindfulness, and adjustment in a sample of 307 adults experiencing spiritual struggles.The predictions were that experiential avoidance would be associated with poorer adjustment and that mindfulness would be associated with better adjustment.It was also predicted that the relationships between spiritual struggles and poorer adjustment would be stronger among people with higher than lower levels of experiential avoidance.Finally, it was predicted that the relationships between spiritual struggles and less problematic adjustment would be stronger among people with higher than lower levels of mindfulness.The findings generally supported the hypotheses that experiential avoidance is problematic for people experiencing spiritual struggles.With a few notable exceptions, mindfulness, as measured in the present study, was not significantly related to indices of adjustment.Some support was found for the hypothesis that the detrimental effects of spiritual struggles on adjustment would be greater among people with higher than lower levels of experiential avoidance.These findings were particularly robust for the measure of situationspecific experiential avoidance.These findings are discussed along with implications and future directions.I am thankful for many people who have been important in this helping me see this project to completion.I would first like to express my deep gratitude and respect for my advisor, Kenneth I. Pargament, for his support, guidance, and encouragement throughout this process.He has been an amazing mentor in so many areas of my professional and personal development -I am truly lucky to work with him.Amy Wagner served as a great research and clinical mentor while I was on internship at the Portland VAMC and her encouragement and belief in me during an early iteration of this project echo through to this more recent version.William O'Brien was one of my first research advisors at BGSU and has also been integral to my clinical development.He supported me in finding my voice in the "tree house," in the ACT community, and he continues to remind me to matter.I would also like to thank my committee members, William O'Brien, Michael Zickar, and Pricilla Coleman for their