Taking a critical look at feminism and exploring its explicit and implicit spiritual dimensions, this revised and updated new edition of Women and Spirituality engages in a reflective dialogue with contemporary women's voices. It asks to what extent patriarchal oppression and androcentric thinking are inherent not only in Christianity but in all religious beliefs, practices and institutions. This is the only book which provides a comprehensive survey of current discussions in feminist theology and spirituality and offers a wide-ranging account of women and world religions and raising thought-provoking questions about the spiritual dimensions of human life.

This enlightening book examines how the feminist spirituality movement contributes to the establishment of new paradigms of mental health for women. Women's Spirituality, Women's Lives examines possible psychotherapeutic implications for women engaged in feminist spirituality and stimulates much-needed conversation between feminist therapists and feminist theologians/ritualists. Feminist spirituality is part of the current broad challenge to accepted ways of knowing and being. This book argues that as women tell their own stories, they create rituals that enable them to feel a sense of control over the future and to move toward a kind of authority, agency, and autonomy associated with mental health and psychological well-being. Women from many cultural backgrounds and religious perspectives have embraced alternative forms of spiritual expression, based on profound theoretical challenges to mainstream religious beliefs, ranging from calls for the radical reclamation and reconstruction of religious traditions to personal involvement in goddess worship and Wicca. Women's Spirituality, Women's Lives presents theoretical, conceptual, and experiential chapters that analyze the extent to which these proliferating women's groups represent the beginnings of new norms of mental health for women.Women's Spirituality, Women's Lives presents a variety of voices, including Native American, Christian, Jewish, and Wiccan. Chapters are divided into three sections--Laying the Groundwork, Theoretical Challenges, and Living It Out--and explore a diverse array of topics such as: the "shouting" church and Black women's mental health a traditionalist Native American challenge to New Age cooptation a feminist group and Jewish women's self-identity lesbian altar-making and mental health feminist Wicca in the U.S. and Germany the martial arts and women's mental health the use of feminist rituals in therapy and as therapyFeminist therapists and theologians, as well as other individuals interested in feminist spirituality or alternative spirituality, will find this book a fascinating exploration of the various aspects of the spirituality of women. Women's Spirituality, Women's Lives is also an excellent reader to expand the thinking of students in classes in women's studies and religious studies.

Spirituality, Health, and Healing offers health care professionals and individual caregivers the guidelines and tools necessary to provide compassionate spiritual care to their clients and patients. By describing the profound role of spirituality on the body, mind, and spirit, this resource is an essential asset to practitioners eager to enhance their understanding of their important topic.

'Women's Spirituality' is an enlarged and revised edition of the widely used anthology that looks at the spiritual and psychological dimensions of women's lives. Using classical and contemporary texts, the present volume illuminates the way feminist issues find grounding in great spiritual teachers such as Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Ignatius Loyola, and Jane de Chantal. Four sections develop the central theme. The first considers contemporary issues: women in ministry, different forms of feminist spirituality, and sexism in the church. The second provides contemporary resources for psychological development. The third gives examples of spiritual development in the biblical, Ignatian, Carmelite, and Salesian traditions. The final section considers new visions of women's spirituality in the present day. Contributors to this volume include Anne Carr, Joann Wolski Conn, Kathleen Fischer, Constance FitzGerald, James Fowler, Carol Gilligan, Rosemary Haughton, Elizabeth A. Johnson, Robert Kegan, John McDargh, Jean Baker Miller, Sandra M. Schneiders, Elisabeth Schÿssler Fiorenza, Mary Jo Weaver, Rowan Williams, and Wendy M. Wright.

The Celts provide strong, accessible images of powerful women. This work illustrates how the reader can create a personalized pathway linking two important aspects of self - the feminine and the hereditary (or adopted) Celt - and as a result enable her to become a whole, powerful woman.

The changes in South Africa, as well as globally, have had varying effects on the lives of South African women. This book traces some of these changes - as well as aspirations for change - in a particular field: women's search for the beyond, the transcendent. The papers range from personal experience to academic proposals for change.

Inspiring portraits of contemporary African women leaders.