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Unit 9 Final Assignment

Heather St.Myer

Purdue University Global

HW420 Creating Wellness - Psychological and Spiritual Aspects of Healing

Professor Mark Maule

March 8, 2022
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Unit 9 Final Assignment

Spiritual health relates to one’s connection with God or another higher power,

themselves, others, and nature (Ghaderi, et al. 2018). We have learned in this class that there

are important connections between the mind, body, and spirit and all aspects are important for

health. Mental or psychological health and spiritual health are directly related and a

questionnaire to help determine a client’s state of wellness could provide very useful to a

practitioner. According to Ivtzan, et al. (2013), “after decades of empirical research, there is

substantial evidence that religion and spirituality are strongly associated with mental health

and psychological well-being” (p. 1). This questionnaire will help assess the client’s spiritual and

psychological health.

Questionnaire:

1. What does spirituality mean to you?

2. What do you do to encourage spirituality?

3. What are some specific examples of how to improve your spirituality? (meditation,

yoga, church, etc.)

4. In what ways does your spirituality impact your ability to complete tasks at work?

At home?

5. How do you go about improving your psychological health? (journaling, therapy,

reading, exercise, etc.)

6. In what ways does your psychological state impact your ability to complete tasks at

work?

At home?
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7. Are you affected by other’s psychological state?

How do you overcome any negative influences?

8. Have you ever had physical symptoms manifest themselves during or after a change in

your psychological state?

Can you describe those?

If negative, how did you overcome those?

9. How do your psychological and spiritual health complement each other?

10. Regarding your whole health- mental, physical, and spiritual- do you place more

importance on one component?

Why or why not?

Explanations of Questions:

I liked the suggested questions provided to us in class and decided to use those and expand on

them.

1. Asking the client what spirituality means to them is important to see the client’s

perspective of spirituality. For example, they can share whether religion plays an

important part in their spirituality or if it is more of a connection with nature or self.

2. This question is important to gauge whether the client knows of ways to improve their

spiritual health, ways to connect with others, or ways to help others improve their

spiritual health.

3. I hope to see if the client is actively working to improve their spirituality with things like

attending church, reading, meditation, or yoga.

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4. The answer to this question can reveal if the client allows their spirituality to carry over

into their job and if it helps or is a hindrance.

a. I think it is also important how their spirituality affects their home life. For

example, how they interact with their spouse or children can be impacted with

by their spirituality. Their spirituality could impact how they raise their children

as well.

5. I hope to see if the client does things like journaling, reading, exercising, or attending

therapy to improve their psychological health or if not if they are aware of such

possibilities. According to the CDC (2021), “mental health includes our emotional,

psychological, and social well-being. It affects how we think, feel, and act. It also helps

determine how we handle stress, relate to others, and make healthy choices” (n.p.).

Using some questions to address the psychological health of the client is useful to get a

picture of their overall wellness.

6. Similar to question 4, this question will help the practitioner to see if the client’s

psychological health affects them on the job and at home.

7. Someone’s good or bad mood can often be contagious. This question will help

determine if the client allows the psychological state of others to affect their own

mental state and how they would overcome any influences by negative people.

8. This question can reveal how things like stress and anxiety affect the client. Perhaps

they become flushed, or their heart rate increases when someone is in a bad mood and

yells at them. Are they able to come back to a more relaxed state easily after

experiencing such physical symptoms?

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9. Since psychological and spiritual health are so closely related, it is important to know

how the client feels they relate to each other. Do they connect the two aspects of

health and view them as working together or complementing one another?

10. This question is important to see if the person puts more weight on any aspect of their

health from the mind-body-spirit connection. It might help them realize that they are

imbalanced and want to work on improving other areas of their health. For example,

someone might be so focused on their physical health that they spend the majority of

their time exercising and planning their meals and supplements. While physical health

is an important component to overall health, it is not the only one. If they spend too

much time on it, they don’t take the time to have personal relationships which can

improve their psychological and spiritual health.

I interviewed my co-worker Janet.

Interviewee Answers:

1. What does spirituality mean to you?

Faith, religious beliefs. It helps to go to church every week. I currently attend online.

I could use this answer to help her expand her thoughts of spirituality, especially adding nature

knowing that she spoke of taking walks in a later question.

2. What do you do to encourage spirituality?

Attend Bible study – getting ready to attend 2 per week

Pray
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3. What are some specific examples of how to improve your spirituality? (meditation,

yoga, church, etc.)

Attending church in person. Journaling seems like a good idea, but I don’t utilize it much.

I would use this question/answer to suggest some ways to connect with herself. If she doesn’t

like journaling then maybe meditation, especially walking meditation.

4. In what ways does your spirituality impact your ability to complete tasks at work?

It does not affect my ability at work

At home?

Forgiveness (for example forgiving my husband).

I think this speaks a lot to her spiritual health. She does not try to influence others with her

spirituality and does not let it affect her work.

5. How do you go about improving your psychological health? (journaling, therapy,

reading, exercise, etc.)

You need to let yourself unwind. I go for walks; it helps to get re-centered.

After the whole interview, knowing that she experiences anxiety, I might suggest more ways to

relax such as exercise.

6. In what ways does your psychological state impact your ability to complete tasks at

work?

They can completely affect me at work. The better mood you’re in, the more tasks you can get

done.
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At home?

In the same way, I can accomplish more in a better mood, although I am really good at cleaning

when I am really mad. – Rage cleaning

Since she specifically mentioned being more productive when in a good mood, we could work

on ways to reduce stress or keep a positive attitude when coworkers are negative. For

example, humor at work is important and maybe designating a place where she could step

away for a moment if she is stressed.

7. Are you affected by other’s psychological state?

Yes, if my husband is mad, it can put me in a bad mood. She has a nickname for him when he is

in a bad mood.

How do you overcome any negative influences?

Wine/beer (ha). Consider the source of the influence and move on.

Even though someone’s negative psychological state can affect her, I think she does not dwell

on it and can move on so this does not really need addressed.

8. Have you ever had physical symptoms manifest themselves during or after a change

in your psychological state?

Yes, with anxiety.

Can you describe those?

Panic attacks
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If negative, how did you overcome those?

Deep breathing, focus on something different to re-focus

She already has some strategies to calm down during panic attacks, but we could work on some

ways to reduce anxiety before a panic attack happens and might be able to prevent them.

Deep breathing, meditation, taking a quick walk, etc.

9. How do your psychological and spiritual health complement each other?

If one is good, it helps the other. Prayer helps when having issues.

She did not mention anything negative here, so she seems pretty balanced with these two

elements of health.

10. Regarding your whole health- mental, physical, and spiritual- do you place more

importance on one component?

Consider them all equal.

Why or why not?

Likes to have a balance.

In retrospect, I would have asked more follow-up questions to get more information from

Janet. For example, questions 6 and 7, I would also address the negative effects that she might

experience if she found herself in a bad mood or if someone else’s negative attitude was having

an influence on her at work. Also, on question 10 about the mental, physical, and spiritual

balance, I could have asked her what she does when one feels out of balance. This would help

after the interview with thinking of strategies to help with finding balance if she didn’t have

any.
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As a practitioner, using this questionnaire would help Janet develop a spiritual and

psychological health development plan. She can learn more about how spiritual health is not

just about religion and ways to improve her spirituality. She has some good ideas to improve

her psychological health but could benefit from some more methods to reduce anxiety. I would

make a few adjustments to the questions to encourage longer and more in-depth answers from

future interviewees.
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References
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (June 28, 2021). About Mental Health.

https://www.cdc.gov/mentalhealth/learn/index.htm

Ghaderi, A., Tabatabaei, S. M., Nedjat, S., Javadi, M., & Larijani, B. (2018). Explanatory definition

of the concept of spiritual health: a qualitative study in Iran. Journal of medical ethics

and history of medicine, 11, 3.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6150917/#:~:text=Spiritual%20health

%20includes%20a%20purposeful,social%20aspects%20of%20human%20life.

Ivtzan, I., Chan, C. P., Gardner, H. E., & Prashar, K. (2013). Linking religion and spirituality with

psychological well-being: examining self-actualisation, meaning in life, and personal

growth initiative. Journal of religion and health, 52(3), 915–929.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-011-9540-2