Spirituality: An Approach Through Descriptive Psychology

As a noted theologian and writer, Mary McDermott Shideler was frustrated by the lack of a developed language or conceptual schema for talking about spirituality. How can we share our spiritual experiences? Compare and contrast spiritual practices and communities? Indeed, how can we articulate anything about spirituality without a coherent conceptual system that is readily accessible to all who might want to join such a discussion? Spirituality: An Approach Through Descriptive Psychology was her response.

In this work, Ms. Shideler uses methods of reasoning more general than those of the physical sciences, yet broadly based in universal sensibility, to lay out a conceptual framework for describing the spiritual domain. She demonstrates how it works and then goes on to use it in articulating her own notions of spirituality. In the latter enterprise she does not lay claim to have the "right" answers, experiences or beliefs. Rather she offers hers as an example and a starting place for discussion and comparison of spiritual concepts and disciplines. In so doing, she also provides an entrée into understanding Descriptive Psychology as an intellectual resource.