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]

"Hagiotherapy" was revived under the influence by pope John Paul II's encyclica Salvifici doloris[3] as a pseudo-therapeutic method of healing a man's "spiritual soul" on the premise of "religious experience". 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 isn't founded on the "Salvifici doloris" encyclical, it 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.[4][5]

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. ↑ Salvifici doloris
  4. ↑ Remeš, Prokop Hagioterapie – nový směr psychoterapie? Česká a slovenská psychiatrie č. 4 1998, p. 206-211, ISSN 1212-0383 94
  5. ↑ 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/