Hagiotherapy

Hagiotherapy is the medieval practice of using religious relics, prayers, pilgrimages, etc. to alleviate sickness.[1] It was used to treat epilepsy during the Middle Ages with Saint Valentine particularly associated with the treatment as an 'epilepsy specialist'.[2]

Tomislav Ivančić

A known practicing therapist is Tomislav Ivančić, who founded Center for Spiritual Help in Zagreb. Prokop Remeš in the Czech Republic is treating addicts in Bohnice Psychiatric Hospital in Prague. His style of hagiotherapy is a type of group existential psychotherapy (Yalom, Frankl), which focuses on eliminating dysfunctional behaviour patterns from one's life. This hagiotherapy uses biblical text as background to project one's own experiences against to active a greater understanding of text: one of the main instruments of hagiotherapy is projective work with biblical texts.

Ivančić recently defined hagiotherapy as a scientific discipline which aims to heal the human soul. His thesis was that every human being does not have only physical and psychological dimension, but also spiritual dimension (human soul) that has its own scientific laws and it should be subject of scientific research.

One of examples Ivančić gives is addiction. He was concerned with the fact that so many patients relapse some time after treatment. He explained it with the fact that they were treated only on mental level, and not on spiritual level. According to his opinion, addiction is basically spiritual issue, so it needs to be treated on spiritual level.[3][4]

References
  1. Crane, Susan The Performance of Self: Ritual, Clothing and Identity During the Hundred Years War (Middle Ages) University of Pennsylvania Press (28 May 2002) ISBN 978-0-8122-1806-0 p.186
  2. Lopez-Ibor Jr, JJ and Maria Ines Lopez-Ibor Alcocer "Religious Experience and Psychopathology" in Peter Verhagen, Herman M. Van Praag, Juan Jose López-Ibor, John Cox, Driss Moussaoui Religion and Psychiatry: Beyond Boundaries: Implications for Clinical Practice (World Psychiatric Association)' ' WileyBlackwell (29 Dec 2009) ISBN 978-0-470-69471-8 p.213, pdf of chapter at
  3. Remeš, Prokop Hagioterapie – nový směr psychoterapie? Česká a slovenská psychiatrie č. 4 1998, p. 206-211, ISSN 1212-0383 94
  4. Říčan, Pavel Psychologie náboženství a spirituality Portál, Praha, 2007, ISBN 978-80-7367-312-3 p. 306; Adamkovičová, Denisa Aplikácia psychologických aspektov biblických príbehov vo vybraných psychoterapeutických smeroch RKCMBF UK Bratislava, 2011, http://www.ctar.sk/wp-content/uploads/DP_adamkovicova_PK.pdf; Friedlová, Anna Hagioterapie TF JU České Budějovicíce, 2007, http://theses.cz/id/esctxh/; Holubová, Marie Hagioterapie – využití biblických příběhů pro práci s klientem KSPSP FSS MU Brno, 2012, https://is.muni.cz/th/184105/fss_m?fakulta=1423;obdobi=5465;studium=601387;info=1;zpet=%2Fvyhledavani%2F%3Fsearch%3Ddiplomov%C3%A9%20pr%C3%A1ce%20hagioterapie%26start%3D1; Pitlachová, Klára Biblické příběhy jako zrcadlo životní zkušenosti člověka léčeného ze závislosti na alkoholu FSS MU Brno, 2006, http://is.muni.cz/th/41485/fss_m/
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