Harold Koenig – författare

The Handbook of Religion and Health has become the seminal research text on religion, spirituality, and health, outlining a rational argument for the connection between religion and health. The Second Edition completely revises and updates the first edition. Its authors are physicians: a psychiatrist and geriatrician, a primary care physician, and a psychiatrist and theologian, all with advanced degrees in epidemiology and public health. The Second Edition surveys the historical connections between religion and health and grapples with the distinction between the terms ''religion'' and ''spirituality'' in research and clinical practice. It reviews research on religion and mental health, as well as extensive research literature on the mind-body relationship, and develops a model to explain how religious involvement may impact physical health through the mind-body mechanisms. It also explores the direct relationships between religion and physical health, covering such topics as immune and endocrine function, heart disease, hypertension and stroke, neurological disorders, cancer, and infectious diseases; and examines the consequences of illness including chronic pain, disability, and quality of life. Finally, the Handbook reviews research methods and addresses applications to clinical practice. Theological perspectives are interwoven throughout the chapters. The Handbook is the most insightful and authoritative resource available to anyone who wants to understand the relationship between religion and health.

This book presents a comprehensive and scientific review of the research during the past fifty years on the relationship between religion and health in later life. It will help professionals gain awareness of the importance of religious and spiritual variables among older people. The widespread interest in religion among today's elderly suggests its value as a coping strategy and personal resource. Unlike any other in the field, this volume synthesizes both past research and new findings, including recent unpublished data, into a model of how religion might interact with other variables to help determine adaptation to stress in later life. Religion, Health, and Aging provides substantial contributions to both the applied and academic aspects of religion and aging. With over 500 references this work brings together research findings from a wide variety of disciplines and organizes them in an easily retrievable format.The introduction provides a theoretical framework and model of interactions. Subsequent chapters address the relationship between religious beliefs and attitudes and both mental and physical health. Next investigated are the impacts on health of private religious activity, community religious involvement, and personal religious experience. A model that demonstrates how religion might interact with stress and illness in later life is presented. Actual cases exemplify the role of religion in the lives of older people facing life-threatening illness. Perspectives from the disciplines of social gerontology, geriatric medicine, and the clergy are analyzed. A review is presented of the implications of research findings for professionals working with older persons. A detailed bibliography, list of publications, and organizations to contact for further information, provide access to further resources. The appendix contains a review of the development and validation of the Springfield Religiosity Schedule, an instrument measuring religious activities, attitudes, and beliefs of the elderly. Religion, Health, and Aging will serve as a centralized resource of significant value to gerontologists, physicians in psychiatry and medicine, nurses, educators, therapists, clinical psychologists, social workers, the clergy, and others whose professional and personal lives touch older people.

A fascinating marriage of science and spirituality, THE HEALING POWER OF FAITH uses the tools of science - double-blind research studies and analysis of tissue, blood levels, and hormones - to track the influence of religious beliefs on physical and mental health. The documented evidence shows how traditional religious practices like prayer and community service can raise white blood cell counts, improve immune system responses, and lower blood pressure. THE HEALING POWER OF FAITH is filled with inspiring case studies of remarkable recoveries from near-fatal illness, as well as heartwarming stories of how people from such diverse backgrounds as Evangelical Christianity, Orthodox Judaism, Catholicism, and Baptist Fundamentalism triumph over addiction, depression, marital problems, and other serious life stresses. With simple, practical methods for harnessing the power of faith, this cutting-edge book offers a fascinating, scientifically valid approach to healing.