Spirituality in Clinical Practice

Coping With Religious and Spiritual Struggles: Religious and Secular

Techniques
Joshua A. Wilt, Julie J. Exline, and Kenneth I. Pargament
Online First Publication, January 13, 2022. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/scp0000289

CITATION
Wilt, J. A., Exline, J. J., & Pargament, K. I. (2022, January 13). Coping With Religious and Spiritual Struggles: Religious and
Secular Techniques. Spirituality in Clinical Practice. Advance online publication. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/scp0000289
 Spirituality in Clinical Practice
© 2022 American Psychological Association
ISSN: 2326-4500 https://doi.org/10.1037/scp0000289

Coping With Religious and Spiritual Struggles:

Religious and Secular Techniques

Joshua A. Wilt1, Julie J. Exline1, and Kenneth I. Pargament2

1
Department of Psychological Sciences, Case Western Reserve University
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

2
Department of Psychology, Bowling Green State University
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Religious/spiritual (r/s) struggles can be emotionally painful, yet little is known about
how people cope with them. In our study, undergraduates (N = 976) who were currently
experiencing an r/s struggle completed the Religious and Spiritual Struggles Scale (RSS)
and standardized, self-report measures of religious coping, secular coping, and religious-
ness. Zero-order correlations revealed that, in general, RSS subscales related positively to
most religious coping techniques (except those focused on pursuing a closer relationship
with God) and secular coping techniques. Controlling for religiousness weakened some
associations between some r/s struggles and religious coping (e.g., for demonic and moral
struggles) and strengthened others (e.g., for divine and interpersonal struggles); however,
associations with secular coping were relatively unchanged. These findings suggest that,
regardless of religiousness, more intense r/s struggles associate with heightened and
diverse efforts to cope, with the caveat that some r/s strugglers may be hesitant to rely on
God. Additionally, we observed some nuances in the unique associations between r/s
struggles and religious coping across r/s struggle domains. Demonic struggles were the
strongest predictor of religious coping. Divine and interpersonal struggles showed mostly
positive but weak associations with religious coping. Moral struggles specifically
predicted coping focused on purification of perceived sins. Doubt and ultimate meaning
struggles showed some negative associations with religious coping techniques. Clinicians
may find r/s struggle-coping associations useful. Providers could use the information to
educate clients about the ways in which people try to navigate r/s struggles and to guide
discussions about coping over the course of treatment.
Keywords: religious and spiritual struggles, religious coping, coping, religiousness
Supplemental materials: https://doi.org/10.1037/scp0000289.supp

Although religion and spirituality are typically
viewed as sources of comfort and support
(Granqvist et al., 2010; Hall & Edwards, 2002),
and involvement with r/s predicts higher levels of
mental and physical well-being (for reviews, see
Koenig, 2012; Wilt et al., 2018), many people
Joshua A. Wilt https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7059-6389
Julie J. Exline https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3544-2469
We gratefully acknowledge funding support from the John
Templeton Foundation, Grants #36094 and #59916.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed
to Joshua A. Wilt, Department of Psychological Sciences, Case
Western Reserve University, Mather Memorial Building,
Room 103, 11220 Bellflower road, Cleveland, OH 444106-
7123, United States. Email: joshua.wilt@case.edu
experience turmoil around religious and spiritual
(r/s) life, or r/s struggles (Exline, 2013). R/s strug-
gles encompass concerns, tensions, and negative
thoughts and emotions around r/s and span multi-
ple domains: (a) struggles with supernatural enti-
ties such as God or gods,1 the devil, and demons;
(b) interpersonal r/s conflicts with individuals or
institutions; and (c) intrapsychic turmoil around
morality, r/s doubts, or questions pertaining to the
ultimate meaning(s) of one’s life or existence more
broadly (Exline & Rose, 2013). R/s struggles may
be profoundly challenging, as people experiencing
r/s struggles have lower levels of mental and
1
We use the term “God” in this manuscript to maintain
consistency with previous literature.

1
 2 WILT, EXLINE, AND PARGAMENT
physical health across a wide range of indicators
(for reviews, see Exline, 2013; Exline & Rose,
2013; Stauner, Exline, & Pargament, 2016). These
associations are not only cross-sectional; a recent
meta-analysis of longitudinal studies provided
evidence that r/s struggles predict increases in
distress (Bockrath et al., 2021). However, in spite
of their associations with negative outcomes, r/s
struggles are also conceived of as normal and
natural parts of r/s that may present opportunities
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for both growth and decline (Pargament, 2007).
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Indeed, some people report being affected by r/s
struggles in positive ways, both psychologically
and spiritually, whereas others report mainly neg-
ative effects (for a review, see Stauner et al., 2020).
Coping strategies may be crucial for adjusting
to r/s struggles, as different strategies could lead
to different psychospiritual trajectories. For
example, more adaptive coping strategies could
help people to learn valuable spiritual lessons and
resolve r/s struggles without unnecessary hard-
ship, whereas less adaptive coping strategies
could lead to stagnation in r/s life and fail to
protect people from serious emotional pain. Yet,
relatively little is known about how people tend to
cope with r/s struggles. That is, what coping
strategies, both r/s and secular in nature, do
people turn to and away from when r/s life
becomes tumultuous? In the present study, we
attempted to provide nascent, exploratory data
relevant to this question. Furthermore, because r/s
struggles and coping strategies may relate to
overall levels of r/s, we statistically controlled
for religious belief salience (Blaine & Crocker,
1995) to uncover unique associations.
Our findings may potentially be important for at
least three reasons. First, results could yield initial
insights into how people attempt to resolve r/s
struggles. Second, we may find that people prefer
to cope with different domains of r/s struggles in
different ways. Third, treatment providers, such as
clinicians, counselors, clergy, etc., may find data
on r/s struggle-coping associations useful; for
instance, providers may use the information to
educate clients about the ways in which people
try to navigate r/s struggles and to guide discus-
sions about coping over the course of treatment.
Assessment of Religious/Spiritual Struggles
Several self-report inventories measure individ-
ual domains of r/s struggles (e.g., doubt; Krause &
Ellison, 2009) or multiple domains (e.g., alienation
from God, fear/guilt, religious rifts; Exline et al.,
2000). Additionally, widely used measures of reli-
gious coping, the original RCOPE (Pargament
et al., 2000) and brief RCOPE (Pargament et al.,
1998), assessed what was termed “negative reli-
gious coping”; however, this term has been super-
seded by r/s struggle.2 Among those measures,
perhaps the most comprehensive is the Religious
and Spiritual Struggles Scale (RSS; Exline et al.,
2014), which was designed to assess a composite or
total score, as well as six domains with four or five
items each: divine struggle (e.g., anger at God,
feeling punished by God), demonic struggle (e.g.,
feeling tormented by evil spirits or the devil),
interpersonal struggle (disagreements with other
people about r/s or negativity toward organized
religion), doubt-related struggle (doubts and ques-
tions about one’s faith), moral struggle (struggles
to follow moral principles and guilt about per-
ceived failures), and ultimate meaning struggle
(concerns about whether there is a deeper, ultimate
meaning in one’s life and/or existence).
Religious/Spiritual Struggles and
Religious Coping
When struggling in general and in times of
crisis, many people turn to a myriad of coping
strategies that involve r/s (Pargament, 1997;
Pargament et al., 1998). For example, r/s beliefs
may provide comfort or solace when tragedy
strikes. Or people may be able to find meaning
in suffering by considering that God allowed or
orchestrated suffering for an ultimately benevo-
lent purpose. Those who believe in a relational
God might turn to God directly for assistance.
Further, members of r/s congregations could seek
support from clergy or might be able to rely on a
support network of r/s peers. Prayer, meditation,
and other r/s rituals represent easily accessible
means of coping. There is a large body of research
on r/s coping, delineating the ways in which
people cope and the effects of different strategies
across various stressors (Pargament et al., 2013).
When navigating r/s struggles, it seems possi-
ble that people might either turn to or away from
r/s coping strategies. A person who is struggling
in one domain may look to r/s resources in other
domains to help with the struggle. For instance, a
2
Coping strategies falling under the term “positive reli-
gious coping” are still considered measures of coping distinct
from r/s struggles.
 COPING WITH RELIGIOUS/SPIRITUAL STRUGGLES
person experiencing demonic struggles may turn
to r/s coping strategies involving God or their r/s
community. In support of this idea, r/s resources
have been found to buffer the effects of r/s
struggles on adjustment (Abu-Raiya et al.,
2016). In contrast, other r/s strugglers may
want to disengage from r/s, or at least r/s coping
strategies, because r/s is viewed as the source of
conflict. For example, a person experiencing
doubts about r/s realities may be reluctant to
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engage more deeply with r/s in various ways,
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such as with r/s texts, r/s communities, or God,
due to lack of confidence in those entities. Given
the potential connections between r/s struggles
and r/s coping, surprisingly little research has
examined empirical associations across domains.
One study found positive associations between all
RSS domains and positive r/s coping (Lampe
et al., 2019), suggesting that people may employ
relatively effective r/s coping strategies when
under r/s duress. Another study found that r/s
struggles measured by the negative r/s coping
subscale of the Brief RCOPE (Pargament et al.,
2011) predicted increases in positive r/s coping 2
years later (Reynolds et al., 2014).
Understanding the links between r/s struggles
and coping strategies is important in part because
there is some evidence that these coping strategies
vary in their functional value. Some nascent work
in this area suggests that some r/s coping strate-
gies work better than others. For instance, people
who responded to r/s struggles with higher levels
of coping strategies such as collaborating with
God, seeking support from r/s others, and finding
r/s meaning showed higher levels of adjustment
on indicators of mental and spiritual well-being
(Desai & Pargament, 2015; Exline, Hall, et al.,
2017; Wilt, Stauner, et al., 2019). In the present
study, we examined associations between r/s
struggles and many aspects of r/s coping. Because
this study was highly exploratory, we did not
make hypotheses regarding associations.
Religious/Spiritual Struggles and
Secular Coping
When attempting to manage r/s struggles, it is
likely that people also rely on coping strategies
that do not explicitly involve r/s. Because
r/s struggles entail a variety of psychosocial
challenges (Pargament & Exline, in press), peo-
ple may also see secular coping strategies as
3
potentially helpful. And assessing secular coping
strategies creates the potential to examine links
between r/s struggles and more basic psychologi-
cal processes. Thus, in our study, we assessed a
wide range of secular coping strategies. To our
knowledge, only one study examined associations
across multiple r/s struggle domains and secular
coping strategies (Szcześniak & Timoszyk-
Tomczak, 2020). This study involving Roman
Catholics showed that fear/guilt around perceived
transgressions (an aspect of moral struggles), neg-
ative emotions toward God (an aspect of divine
struggles), and negative emotions toward r/s in-
dividuals and institutions (an aspect of interper-
sonal struggles) related negatively to active coping
strategies such as planning and seeking emotional
support, and positively to passive coping strate-
gies, such as distraction and venting. Though we
did not make hypotheses due to the exploratory
nature of our study, we were interested in whether
the RSS showed similar patterns of associations
with various domains of secular coping.
Covarying Religiousness
In addition to examining zero-order associations
between r/s struggles and coping, we controlled for
potential confounds based on religiousness. Reli-
giousness has shown consistent positive associa-
tions with demonic and moral struggles and
negative associations with ultimate meaning strug-
gles (Exline et al., 2014; Stauner, Exline, &
Grubbs, 2016). Not surprisingly, religiousness is
positively associated with coping strategies involv-
ing r/s (Pargament et al., 2011). Therefore, it is
important to statistically control for religiousness
when examining associations among r/s struggles
and r/s coping. For consistency, we also controlled
for religiousness when looking at links between r/s
struggles and secular coping.
Overview of the Present Study
We conducted a large-scale, cross-sectional
study involving undergraduate participants who
were currently experiencing an r/s struggle. Par-
ticipants completed self-report measures of r/s
struggles, coping, and religiousness. Because
research on this topic is at such an early stage,
we reasoned that a relatively comprehensive
approach to cataloging zero-order associations
and unique associations between r/s struggle
and coping variables with a large sample would
 4 WILT, EXLINE, AND PARGAMENT

Figure 1
Domains of Religious/Spiritual Struggles and Coping Assessed in the Present Study
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Note. We used the Religious and Spiritual Struggles Scale (RSS; Exline et al., 2014) to assess r/s struggles, the RCOPE
(Pargament et al., 1998) to assess religious coping, and the Brief Cope (Carver, 1997) to assess secular coping. Our primary
analyses examined pairwise associations between RSS subscales (a) RCOPE subscales and (b) Brief Cope subscales. Example
items for all subscales appear in Table 1.

be a valuable contribution. Figure 1 provides an
overview of key concepts and the measures/sub-
scales associated with them. Specifically, this
research could provide initial insights into the
specific coping strategies, both r/s and secular,
that people think will be better suited to navigat-
ing different r/s struggles, and such information
could be useful in treatment settings.
Method
(1%), Muslim (1%), and Buddhist (.5%). Nonreli-
gious identifications included agnostic (5%), no
affiliation (4%), and atheist (2%). Two percent of
individuals reported other r/s (or non-r/s) affilia-
tions (e.g., spiritual, other, or unsure).
Measures
We computed scores for all measures described
below by averaging across items. Table 1 displays
example items for each measure.

Participants Religious and Spiritual (R/S) Struggles

Participants were enrolled in introductory psy-
chology courses in three U.S. universities: a public
university and a private research university in the
Great Lakes region, and a private Christian uni-
versity in the western U.S. All methods were
approved by each university’s IRB. Participants
received partial course credit. Out of the 3,106
students who enrolled, 976 (70% women, 30%
men) reported a specific r/s struggle and were
retained for analyses. Mean age was 19.1 (SD =
2.1). Self-identified ethnicities included Caucasian
(75%), Asian/Pacific Islander (15%), Latino/His-
panic (10%), Black/African American (6%), and
other (2%). (The total percentage exceeds 100%
because participants could choose more than one
ethnicity.) Self-reported religious affiliations were
Christian (85%; 16% Catholic, 24% Protestant,
44% unspecified Christian), Jewish (1%), Hindu
The RSS (Exline et al., 2014) served as our
measure of r/s struggles. Participants read, “Over
the past few months I have : : : ” followed by 26
items that assess six types of struggle: Divine,
Demonic, Interpersonal, Moral, Doubt, and Ulti-
mate Meaning. Because we were interested in
how coping strategies may vary across different
kinds of r/s struggles, we considered the breadth
of this scale to be aligned with the goals of our
study. The scale has also shown good psycho-
metric characteristics: Confirmatory factor anal-
yses support distinguishing among the six
subscales, and scores on each subscale have
shown evidence of high reliability and predictive
validity for mental health and r/s criterion vari-
ables (Exline et al., 2014; Stauner, Exline, &
Grubbs, 2016). We computed a total RSS score
(calculated by averaging across all RSS items)
 COPING WITH RELIGIOUS/SPIRITUAL STRUGGLES
and scores for each subscale. Participants
responded to items from 1 (not at all) to 5
(a great deal).
Coping
We assessed 14 dimensions of religious coping
using three-item subscales from the RCOPE
(Pargament et al., 1998). The RCOPE is a highly
comprehensive inventory that assesses multiple
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r/s coping strategies aimed at finding meaning
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(e.g., reappraisal strategies), gaining control (e.g.,
appealing to God for help), gaining closeness to
God (e.g., seeking God’s care), gaining intimacy
with others (e.g., seeking help from clergy), and
achieving life transformation (e.g., looking for an
r/s awakening). The RCOPE is appealing for this
exploratory investigation due to its breadth and
efficiency. We did not include the subscales often
framed as negative religious coping because
much of their content is similar to RSS items,
such as negative interactions with God, demonic
reappraisals, and interpersonal r/s strife. Items on
the RCOPE generally load highly on their respec-
tive factors (Pargament et al., 2000). Scores on
the RCOPE subscales consistently display
evidence of high reliability and as well as validity
for predicting adjustment to various stressors
(Pargament et al., 2013)
To assess secular coping, we administered the
Brief Cope (Carver, 1997). This inventory in-
cludes 14 two-item subscales, thus providing a
wide-ranging and economical assessment of
many secular strategies (e.g., planning, accep-
tance, seeking emotional support, distraction,
venting), as well as one subscale that measures
r/s coping in general. Due to their brevity, it is
common for Brief Cope scales to fall short of
conventional criteria for Cronbach’s α (Carver,
1997). Scores on Brief Cope subscales have
shown validity for predicting adjustment stres-
sors across many studies (Kato, 2015).
Subscales for each coping measure are shown
in Table 1. For each measure, instructions read,
“In response to this specific religious/spiritual
struggle: To what extent have you responded in
each of these ways?” Participants rated items on a
scale from 1 (not at all) to 4 (a great deal).
Religious Belief Salience
We assessed religiousness with a measure of
religious belief salience (Blaine & Crocker, 1995)
5
which includes four items (omitting one that
assumed belief in God) rated from 0 (does not
apply; I have no religious/spiritual beliefs;
strongly disagree) to 10 (strongly agree). Scores
on this four-item scale have shown high levels of
reliability as well as predictive validity for r/s
struggles in previous work (Exline et al., 2014).
Statistical Analyses
Descriptive Statistics
We computed means, standard deviations, and
Cronbach’s α for all variables.
Associations Between Sets of Variables
As a first step, to examine the overall relationship
among sets of variables, we computed Cohen’s
(1982) set correlation for (a) the RSS and RCOPE
and (b) the RSS and Brief Cope (excluding the
Religion subscale). This statistic quantifies the
shared variance among sets; in our case, it reflects
how much total variance the RSS shares with the
RCOPE and the Brief Cope. We also computed
Cohen’s set correlation for these sets while con-
trolling for religious belief salience, which allows
an examination of how much shared variance
between sets is due to religious belief salience.
Our primary analytic strategy, described next,
was to examine Pearson correlations between pairs
of r/s struggles variables and coping variables. The
large number of correlations between the RSS sub-
scales and coping measures (n = 168) increases the
odds that some p values will be significant (α = .05)
due to chance. Thus, we first conducted randomiza-
tion tests (Sherman & Funder, 2009) using the
multicon package (Sherman, 2014) within R to
determine whether the (a) average magnitude of
correlations between pairs of variables in each set
and (b) number of significant correlations between
pairs in each set exceeded what would be expected
due to chance alone. Significant results of the ran-
domization tests increase the confidence we can
ascribe to interpreting pairs of associations, whereas
null results would indicate that significant associa-
tions between pairs were more likely due to chance.
Associations Between Pairs of Variables
We next computed zero-order correlations
among all pairs of variables. Considering the
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Table 1 6
Descriptive Statistics

Measures and scales Scale range M SD α Example item

Religious and spiritual struggles scale (RSS) 1–5

Total 2.05 0.62 .94 (See below for examples from each subscale)
Divine 1.62 0.81 .90 Felt angry at god
Demonic 1.90 1.02 .91 Felt attacked by the devil or evil spirits
Interpersonal 1.92 0.86 .84 Felt angry at organized religion
Moral 2.86 1.07 .88 Felt torn between what I wanted and what I knew was morally right
Doubt 2.13 1.04 .90 Felt confused about my religious/spiritual beliefs
Ultimate meaning 2.10 1.07 .88 Felt as though my life had no deeper meaning
Religious belief salience 0–10
Religious belief salience scale 8.34 3.21 .97 Being a religious person is important to me
RCope 1–4
Benevolent religious reappraisal 2.59 0.94 .88 Saw my situation as part of God’s plan
Collaborative religious coping 2.35 0.88 .86 Tried to put my plans into action together with God
Active religious surrender 2.38 0.89 .86 Did my best and then turned the situation over to God
Passive religious deferral 1.59 0.67 .77 Didn’t do much, just expected God to solve my problems for me
Self-directing religious coping 2.05 0.78 .78 Tried to deal with my feelings without God’s help
Seeking spiritual support 2.85 0.94 .89 Sought God’s love and care
Religious focus 2.13 0.82 .78 Prayed to get my mind off my problems
Religious purification 2.59 0.94 .86 Confessed my sins
Spiritual connection 2.46 0.86 .76 Looked for a stronger connection with God
Seeking support from clergy or members 1.93 0.80 .73 Looked for spiritual support from clergy
Religious helping 2.34 0.86 .81 Prayed for the well-being of others
Seeking religious Direction 2.03 0.89 .83 Asked God to help me find a new purpose in life
Religious conversion 2.03 0.87 .78 Tried to find a completely new life through religion
WILT, EXLINE, AND PARGAMENT

Religious forgiving 2.37 0.93 .83 Sought help from God in letting go of my anger
Brief cope 1–4
Active coping 2.39 0.84 .75 I’ve been concentrating my efforts on doing something about the situation I’m in
Planning 2.33 0.88 .67 I’ve been trying to come up with a strategy about what to do
Positive reframing 2.29 0.89 .76 I’ve been trying to see it in a different light, to make it seem more positive
Acceptance 2.52 0.83 .59 I’ve been accepting the reality of the fact that it has happened
Humor 1.65 0.82 .70 I’ve been making jokes about it
Using emotional support 2.32 0.93 .83 I’ve been getting emotional support from others
Using instrumental support 2.32 0.93 .46 I’ve been getting help and advice from other people
Self-distraction 2.32 0.88 .67 I’ve been turning to work or other activities to take my mind off things
Venting 1.87 0.75 .58 I’ve been saying things to let my unpleasant feelings escape
Behavioral disengagement 1.65 0.73 .67 I’ve been giving up trying to deal with it
Denial 1.42 0.67 .80 I’ve been saying to myself, ‘this isn’t real’
Substance use 1.30 0.65 .90 I’ve been using alcohol or other drugs to make myself feel better
Self-blame 2.21 0.95 .81 I’ve been blaming myself for things that happened
Religion 2.53 1.01 .69 I’ve been trying to find comfort in my religion or spiritual beliefs
Note. M = average item mean. SD = standard deviation of item mean. RSS = religious and spiritual struggles scale. α = Cronbach’s α.
 COPING WITH RELIGIOUS/SPIRITUAL STRUGGLES
exploratory nature of these analyses but also
being mindful of the number of tests performed,
we used semiconservative criteria for interpreting
associations. Specifically, we interpret correla-
tions between the RSS and coping measures that
achieved at least a small effect size (r ≥ |.10|),
which corresponds to α = .002. In comparison,
the conservative Bonferroni correction would
yield an α (.05/168 = .0003) corresponding to
a cutoff value of r ≥ |.12|. We interpret effect sizes
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according to the criteria recommended by Gignac
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and Szodorai (2016) for the cognitive and behav-
ioral sciences: .10 (small), .20 (moderate), and
.30 (large).
We then examined partial correlations between
the RSS and both coping measures while control-
ling for religiousness. As noted in the introduction,
it is important to do so because religiousness may
be a confounder of associations between r/s strug-
gles and r/s coping. Again, we interpret associa-
tions of at least a small effect size (r ≥ |.10|).
Results
Descriptive Statistics
Table 1 shows descriptive statistics. As re-
ported previously (anonymized), RSS domain
scores had acceptable to high reliability. Scores
on the RCOPE and Brief Cope subscales and
religious belief salience suggested acceptable to
high levels of reliability. Due to their brevity, it is
common for Brief Cope scales to fall short of
conventional criteria for Cronbach’s α (as some
scales did).
Examining Associations Between Religious
and Spiritual Struggles and Coping
Set Correlations
Set correlations showed that the shared vari-
ance between the RSS and RCOPE was 54%,
R2 = .54, F(98, 5960.33) = 8.01, p < .001,
whereas the shared variance between the RSS
and Brief Cope was 48%, R2 = .48, F(98,
5960.33) = 6.54, p < .001. When controlling
for religious belief salience, the shared variance
between the RSS and RCOPE was reduced to
44%, R2 = .44, F(98, 5960.33) = 5.81, p < .001,
and the shared variance between the RSS and
Brief Cope was reduced to 39%, R2 = .39, F(98,
5960.33) = 4.95, p < .001. Thus, the RSS shares a
7
substantial amount of variance with both coping
measures, and the shared variance with each
measure is reduced by about 10% when control-
ling for religious belief salience.
Randomization Tests
Randomization tests showed that the average
correlation between RSS subscales and RCOPE
subscales expected by chance was r = .027, and
the cutoff value (95th percentile) was r = .038; the
number of statistically significant correlations
expected by chance was 4 and the cutoff was
14. The observed average r was .149, and the
observed number of statistically significant cor-
relations was 61. Each of these values would be
expected to occur by chance <1/1000 times ( p <
.001), and thus we can conclude that the RSS and
RCOPE are related at greater than chance levels.
Results for the Brief Cope were very similar. The
average correlation between sets of variables
expected by chance was r = .026, and the cutoff
value was r = .033; the number of statistically
significant correlations expected by chance was
four and the cutoff was 10. The observed average
r was .147, and the observed number of statisti-
cally significant correlations was 66: Both values
had ps < .001. Though randomization tests do not
tell which of the individual correlations is signifi-
cant, there is substantial evidence to indicate that
the series of significant results relating the RSS to
the RCOPE as well as to the Brief Cope are
greater than what would be expected due to
chance.
Zero-Order Correlations
The randomization test results give us more
confidence to interpret the zero-order correlations
among variables, which are displayed in Figure 2
as a heat map. The online version of the manu-
script uses color to indicate the magnitudes of
correlations, and the print version displays dif-
ferent magnitudes in variations of gray tone. We
next examine associations between the RSS and
each measure of coping.
Associations Between the RSS and the
RCOPE. In general, we observed a number of
reliable zero-order correlations between the RSS
and RCOPE (see Figure 2 and Table 2). Correla-
tions of total RSS score with RCOPE scales
showed that people with higher levels of r/s
struggles in general reported higher Passive
 8 WILT, EXLINE, AND PARGAMENT

Religious Deferral, Self-Directing Religious
Coping, Seeking Religious Direction, and Reli-
gious Conversion. These associations reflect the
average of RSS subscale correlations. Across
RSS subscales, most effect sizes were small to
moderate, with the exception of those for the
Demonic subscale (which were strong).
Patterns of bivariate associations varied across
RSS subscales. However, some general trends are
worth noting, and we give more detailed accounts
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the Doubt and Ultimate Meaning subscales gen-
erally related negatively to RCOPE scales, except
for their positive associations with Self-Directing
Religious Coping.
Associations Between the RSS and the Brief
Cope. In comparison to the somewhat varied
associations between the RSS and RCOPE, the
RSS-Total score and the RSS subscales associ-
ated relatively uniformly with the Brief Cope (see
Figure 2 and Table 3). Associations with more

of unique associations in the following sections. active coping strategies tended to be small to
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Most strikingly, the Demonic subscale related
strongly and positively related to all RCOPE
scales with the exception of a null relationship
to Self-Directing Religious Coping. The Moral
subscale also showed a high number of positive
associations, (n = 8) subscales, and there were
also several reliable positive associations for the
Divine (n = 4) and Interpersonal (n = 4) sub-
scales. In contrast to these positive associations,
moderate in magnitude, whereas associations
with more passive strategies tended to be moder-
ate to large. Unsurprisingly, RSS subscale asso-
ciations with the Religion subscale roughly
approximated the average associations between
RSS and RCOPE subscales.
Associations Between Religiousness, the RSS,
and Coping. We included religiousness as a
covariate because of its potential links with r/s

Figure 2
Zero-Order Pearson Correlations

Note. The online version of the manuscript uses color to indicate the magnitudes of correlations, and the print version
displays different magnitudes in variations of gray tone. See the online article for the color version of this figure.
 COPING WITH RELIGIOUS/SPIRITUAL STRUGGLES
struggles and coping. Figure 2 shows a variety of
reliable positive and negative correlations among
variables, ranging from small to large in magni-
tude. A detailed review of these associations is
beyond the scope of this paper, but we present a
summary of bivariate relationships in Online
Supplemental Materials. We refer to some of
these bivariate relationships in the Discussion
when interpreting differences between zero-order
and partial correlations for the RSS and coping
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variables. In general, these associations suggest
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that statistically controlling for religiousness may
help to reveal unique associations among r/s
struggles and coping strategies.
Partial Correlations
We examined correlations between the RSS
and both coping measures while controlling for
religiousness (i.e., religious belief salience).
Tables 2 and 3 present results for the RCOPE
and Brief Cope, respectively, again showing
zero-order correlations to facilitate comparisons
across types of correlations.
Unique Associations Between the RSS and the
RCOPE. Controlling for religiousness did not
affect associations for the RSS-Total score but did
change associations for RSS subscales. For the
Divine and Interpersonal subscales, religiousness
acted as a slight suppressor of several correla-
tions; that is, several trivial zero-order correla-
tions (three for Divine; five for Interpersonal)
increased by a large enough magnitude to become
reliably positive. Many correlations for the
Demonic subscale decreased substantially (by
at least .10), yet all unique associations were
positive. For the Moral subscale, five of the eight
zero-order correlations dropped below threshold,
leaving positive associations only with Self-
Directing, Religious Purification, and Religious
Conversion. For the Doubt and Ultimate Meaning
subscales, many of the negative zero-order cor-
relations became weaker. This was especially true
for Ultimate Meaning, which only retained a
negative association with Seeking Spiritual
Support. Both subscales had unique positive
associations with Self-Directing Religious Cop-
ing. Ultimate Meaning retained a positive asso-
ciation to Seeking Religious Direction and had
unique positive associations with Passive Reli-
gious Deferral and Religious Conversion. These
latter two associations had been suppressed by
religiousness.
9
Unique Associations Between the RSS and the
Brief Cope. Controlling for the Religious Belief
Salience Scale barely affected these associations,
except for the Religion subscale, which showed
substantially weaker unique associations with the
Demonic, Moral, Doubt, and Ultimate Meaning
subscales. As would be expected, results for the
Religion subscale paralleled the average results
across RCOPE scales.
Discussion
In an initial exploration of how people cope
with r/s struggles, we used broad and relatively
comprehensive assessments of r/s struggles and
coping techniques, and we controlled for reli-
giousness. Set correlations showed that r/s strug-
gles share a substantial amount of variance with
r/s and secular coping techniques at the zero-
order level and when controlling for religious
belief salience. Thus, there is significant overlap
between these domains. These findings are con-
sistent with the idea that r/s struggles represent
stressful experiences for many people and are
likely to elicit coping responses, both religious
and secular (Pargament & Exline, in press). In
zero-order correlations, at the broadest level, we
found that higher levels of r/s struggles associated
positively with a variety of r/s and secular coping
strategies, except for some noteworthy negative
associations between doubt and ultimate meaning
struggles and r/s coping. These findings suggest
that people who experienced more intense r/s
struggles devoted more effort toward coping
with their struggles in myriad ways. Controlling
for religiousness affected associations between
r/s struggles and r/s coping differently across RSS
subscales but had little effect on associations
between r/s struggles and secular coping. In the
following sections, we focus on some of the
nuances in associations between r/s struggles
and coping at the subscale level, consider how
religiousness affected these associations, and
offer some treatment implications of our findings.
Associations Between Religious and Spiritual
Struggles and Religious Coping
Before focusing on individual RSS subscales,
we highlight some general trends. First, the RSS-
Total score and all subscales associated positively
with self-directing religious coping (attempting
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10

Table 2
Zero-Order Correlations and Partial Correlations (Controlling for Religiousness) Between Religious/Spiritual Struggles and Religious Coping

RSS-ultimate
Scales/subscales RSS-Total RSS-divine RSS-demonic RSS-interpersonal RSS-moral RSS-doubt meaning
RCOPE Zero-order Partial Zero-order Partial Zero-order Partial Zero-order Partial Zero-order Partial Zero-order Partial Zero-order Partial

1. Benevolent religious −.01 −.01 −.04 .01 .34 .16 −.01 .04 .08 −.06 −.21 −.12 −.22 −.06
reappraisal
2. Collaborative religious −.02 −.01 −.04 .00 .32 .13 .00 .06 .08 −.06 −.21 −.13 −.20 −.04
coping
3. Active religious surrender −.02 −.01 −.04 .00 .31 .13 −.01 .04 .05 −.08 −.21 −.13 −.17 −.02
4. Passive religious deferral .16 .17 .18 .19 .26 .20 .13 .15 .06 .02 .00 .04 .04 .10
5. Self-directing religious .27 .28 .21 .20 −.02 .14 .19 .17 .10 .20 .32 .28 .27 .18
coping
6. Seeking spiritual support −.10 −.13 −.13 −.11 .32 .10 −.09 −.05 .09 −.08 −.32 −.27 −.29 −.12
7. Religious focus .09 .11 .06 .11 .34 .20 .06 .11 .13 .03 −.12 −.04 −.10 .04
8. Religious purification .02 .03 −.05 −.01 .35 .18 −.04 .01 .22 .11 −.22 −.14 −.21 −.04
9. Spiritual connection .06 .08 −.03 .02 .36 .19 .08 .14 .11 −.02 −.12 −.02 −.16 .01
10. Seeking support from .09 .10 .07 .12 .38 .25 .08 .13 .07 −.03 −.10 −.02 −.14 −.01
WILT, EXLINE, AND PARGAMENT

clergy or members
11. Religious helping .04 .06 −.02 .02 .33 .18 .05 .10 .10 −.01 −.14 −.06 −.13 .01
12. Seeking religious direction .21 .23 .19 .23 .30 .20 .13 .16 .11 .04 .00 .07 .13 .26
13. Religious conversion .21 .24 .13 .17 .40 .28 .15 .20 .20 .12 −.02 .07 −.01 .14
14. Religious forgiving .09 .11 .05 .10 .34 .20 .06 .11 .13 .03 −.12 −.04 −.10 .06
Note. RSS = religious and spiritual struggles scale. Correlations ≥ |.10| have p values ≤ .002 and are displayed in bold font. “Partial” indicates that partial correlations controlled for
religiousness.
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Table 3
Zero-Order Correlations and Partial Correlations (Controlling for Religiousness) Between Religious/Spiritual Struggles and Secular Coping

RSS-ultimate
Scales/subscales RSS-Total RSS-divine RSS-demonic RSS-interpersonal RSS-moral RSS-doubt meaning
Brief COPE Zero-order Partial Zero-order Partial Zero-order Partial Zero-order Partial Zero-order Partial Zero-order Partial Zero-order Partial

1. Active coping .13 .14 .07 .10 .25 .14 .07 .10 .16 .09 .00 .07 −.03 .08
2. Planning .19 .21 .09 .12 .27 .17 .12 .16 .23 .17 .02 .09 .03 .15
3. Positive reframing .11 .12 .09 .11 .19 .10 .09 .12 .05 −.01 .05 .10 −.02 .07
4. Acceptance .12 .12 .05 .06 .14 .11 .13 .14 .12 .10 −.02 .01 .03 .07
5. Humor .19 .19 .15 .15 .08 .11 .20 .20 .07 .08 .09 .08 .16 .15
6. Using emotional support .14 .15 .08 .11 .21 .11 .09 .12 .12 .06 .03 .09 .02 .12
7. Using instrumental support .12 .13 .05 .08 .22 .11 .10 .13 .10 .03 .02 .09 −.03 .08
8. Self-distraction .27 .27 .19 .19 .09 .10 .16 .16 .22 .23 .20 .20 .21 .22
9. Venting .30 .31 .25 .26 .19 .17 .26 .27 .18 .17 .15 .17 .18 .23
10. Behavioral disengagement .33 .33 .29 .29 .13 .17 .22 .21 .19 .21 .19 .18 .29 .29
11. Denial .29 .29 .29 .28 .15 .17 .21 .21 .11 .12 .17 .17 .24 .24
12. Substance use .22 .22 .21 .20 .02 .10 .20 .18 .09 .14 .12 .09 .24 .20
13. Self-blame .36 .37 .28 .31 .31 .26 .15 .17 .38 .35 .12 .17 .21 .29
14. Religion .01 .02 −.04 .01 .38 .19 −.02 .04 .16 .02 −.18 −.08 −.24 −.06
COPING WITH RELIGIOUS/SPIRITUAL STRUGGLES

Note. RSS = religious and spiritual struggles scale. Correlations ≥ |.10| have p values ≤ .002 and are displayed in bold font. “Partial” indicates that partial correlations controlled for
religiousness. The first seven strategies may be viewed as more active, whereas strategies 8–13 may be viewed as more passive. Religion likely reflects the averaging of different (active and
passive) r/s coping techniques.
11
 12 WILT, EXLINE, AND PARGAMENT
to solve the struggle without God’s help). This
finding is consistent with the uniform, positive
associations we found between the RSS and
secular coping strategies, which we discuss in
the next section. Furthermore, self-directing reli-
gious coping, unlike other secular coping strate-
gies, may often be rooted in a sense of alienation
from God, perhaps because people believe that
God is not there for them or has abandoned them
(Phillips et al., 2004). Thus r/s struggles may
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shake the individual’s reliance on God to be there
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as a source of help.
Second, people with higher RSS-Total scores
reported higher levels of passive religious defer-
ral (i.e., deferring responsibility to solve the
struggle to God), seeking religious direction
(asking God to find a new purpose for one’s
life), and religious conversion (trying to find a
new life through religion). RSS subscales except
for Doubt and Ultimate Meaning, which are
related to the strength or certainty of one’s faith,
largely had positive associations with these cop-
ing strategies as well. This pattern of findings
suggests that r/s struggles may associate with a
sense of personal helplessness and the need for a
major life transformation. This underscores just
how potent struggles can be and the potential
value of some religious coping methods designed
to help people come to terms with their personal
limitations and desires for fundamental life
change. This information may be useful to treat-
ment providers. Providers may inquire about a
potential sense of helplessness and try to help
clients understand what is motivating the need for
substantial life changes. In some cases, these
changes might be life-enhancing. However, if
such faith-based strategies do not seem to be
helpful in resolving the r/s struggle, providers
may want to bring up alternative coping techniques
for discussion, for example, strategies that are more
psychologically or interpersonally focused.
Second, apart from the Demonic subscale,
neither the RSS-Total score nor the RSS sub-
scales associated positively with r/s coping strat-
egies of benevolent religious reappraisal,
collaborative religious coping, active religious
surrender, seeking spiritual support, religious
focus, or religious forgiving. Notably, these
coping strategies involve viewing God posi-
tively and/or working closely with God. These
findings indicate that r/s struggles in general may
associate with apprehension or uncertainty
about pursuing a close relationship with God
and speaks to just how disruptive struggles
might be to the individual’s religious orienta-
tion and worldview. Though the reasons for
these trends might vary across subscales, it is
possible that people experiencing r/s struggles
might be less likely to see God as a reliable
source of support. Thus, some providers may
want to help clients understand the reasons for
a strained relationship with God and consider
how they envision God as well as strategies to
mend the relationship, as collaborating with
God predicts better adjustment to r/s struggles
(Wilt, Stauner, et al., 2019).
Turning to individual RSS domains, Table 4
presents a summary of findings for associations
between the RSS and RCOPE subscales for ease
of reference. First, people reporting greater
demonic struggles were likely to report higher
levels of all r/s coping strategies, and these asso-
ciations were explained in part by higher levels of
religiousness. People reporting demonic strug-
gles are more likely to be highly religious (Exline
et al., 2014), which could make the use of r/s
coping strategies more appealing. However, the
unique associations when controlling for reli-
giousness suggest that people experiencing
demonic struggles may see various kinds of
r/s-focused coping techniques as viable regard-
less of religiousness. Because the devil is per-
ceived as a powerful supernatural entity (Exline,
Wilt, et al., 2021), strategies focused on God (e.g.,
collaborative religious coping, passive religious
deferral, spiritual connection) may be viewed as
recruiting a potentially more powerful supernat-
ural ally. People struggling with beliefs about
supernatural evil might value the perspectives of
highly religious others, such as clergy or religious
community members, who have also experienced
demonic struggles. On the other hand, demonic
strugglers also recognize that some responsibility
for coping with the struggle rests with the self
(e.g., self-directing strategies; the zero-order rela-
tionship for this coping strategy was null but
became positive when controlling for religious-
ness). The ubiquity of associations could also
mean that demonic struggles seem so overwhelm-
ing that people are willing to try any r/s option.
Because demonic struggles are rarely addressed
in the psychological literature, we refer the inter-
ested reader to a more thorough discussion of
coping with demonic struggles and more general
information on this domain of r/s struggles (see
Exline, Pargament, et al., 2021).
 COPING WITH RELIGIOUS/SPIRITUAL STRUGGLES 13

Table 4
Summary of Findings for Associations Between RSS Subscales and the RCOPE

RSS subscale Findings

Divine 1. Several unique (mostly small) positive associations: with Passive Religious Deferral, Self-Directing,
Seeking Support from Clergy or Members, Seeking Religious Direction, and Religious Conversion
2. Religiousness suppressed some zero-order associations
Demonic 1. Strong, positive zero-order associations with most subscales
2. Controlling for religiousness weakened these associations, yet they remained positive and small-to-
moderate in magnitude
Interpersonal 1. Several unique (mostly small) positive associations: with Passive Religious Deferral, Self-Directing,
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Spiritual Connection, Seeking Support from Clergy or Members, Religious Helping, Seeking
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Religious Direction, and Religious Conversion

2. Religiousness suppressed some zero-order associations
Moral 1. Unique positive associations with Self-Directing and Religious Purification
2. Controlling for religiousness brought several positive zero-order correlations below threshold for
interpretation
Doubt 1. Relatively strong unique positive association with Self-Directing
2. Negative unique associations with Benevolent Religious Reappraisal, Collaborative Religious
Coping, Active Religious Surrender, Seeking Spiritual Support (highest negative correlation), and
Religious Purification
3. Controlling for religiousness brought several other negative zero-order correlations below threshold
for interpretation
Ultimate meaning 1. Unique positive association with Self-Directing and Seeking Religious Direction
2. Unique negative association with Seeking Spiritual Support
3. Controlling for religiousness brought several negative zero-order correlations below threshold for
interpretation
Note. RSS = religious and spiritual struggles scale.

People experiencing higher levels of divine
and interpersonal struggles tended to rely on
several similar r/s coping techniques, although
associations were not as prevalent nor quite as
strong as those for demonic struggles. Further-
more, associations for divine and interpersonal
struggles were somewhat more apparent when
controlling for religiousness. That is, religious-
ness acted as a suppressor variable, as would be
expected when a covariate relates to predictors
and criterion variables in opposite directions (see
Figure 2). In sum, people used strategies that
focused on the self (self-directing), others (seek-
ing support from clergy or members), God (pas-
sive religious deferral), and strengthening r/s
connections (seeking religious direction, reli-
gious conversion). Therefore, these struggles
may be seen as a fork in the road, where some
turn away from God as an unreliable or abandon-
ing figure and rely on themselves, and others look
for a major transformation by deferring to God
and seeking a new life/conversion (Pargament,
2007; Pargament & Exline, in press). Providers
thus may be able to discuss options that could be
seen as appealing for those experiencing divine
and/or interpersonal struggles, with the caveat
that passive religious deferral is generally not
viewed as an adaptive strategy (Pargament
et al., 1998)
Moral struggles associated positively with sev-
eral r/s coping strategies in zero-order correla-
tions; however, most of these could be accounted
for by the greater religiousness of moral strug-
glers (see Figure 2). Outside of the unique
association between moral struggles and self-
directing, which was common across all struggle
domains, moral struggles related specifically to
higher levels of religious purification. Because
religious purification involves confessing sins
and the offering of forgiveness, this association
fits with conceptualizations of moral struggles
that involve guilt and emotional pain about per-
ceived transgressions (Exline & Rose, 2013;
Wilt, Evans, et al., 2019). As moral struggles
might sometimes cross the line into scrupulosity
(Exline, Wilt, et al., 2017), providers may want to
explore with their clients whether religious puri-
fication may be an appealing way of seeking
forgiveness for perceived transgressions.
In contrast to the positive associations dis-
cussed thus far, doubt and ultimate meaning
struggles related negatively to several r/s coping
 14 WILT, EXLINE, AND PARGAMENT
strategies in zero-order correlations. Though
most of the associations for ultimate meaning
struggles were accounted for by lower levels of
religiousness (see Figure 2), doubt struggles
maintained multiple unique negative associa-
tions. These findings suggest that those struggling
with r/s doubt are less likely to be driven to r/s
communities or to God, perhaps due to questions
about the veracity of r/s teachings and God’s
existence. We offer the straightforward sugges-
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tion that, when working with clients who are
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struggling with r/s doubts, providers may want
to help clients explore their doubts—where they
are coming from, what they are about—and help
clients sort out how they might like to handle their
doubts. For example, some might consider r/s
disengagement, exploring new r/s contexts and
resources, or building other secular methods of
coping (Pargament & Exline, in press). Finally,
we point out the unique positive association
between ultimate meaning struggles and seeking
religious direction. Because this coping tech-
nique is about finding r/s meanings and purposes
in life, it makes sense that it would be appealing to
those struggling with issues around the meaning
of existence, spirituality, and ultimate purpose.
Predicting Secular Coping
The RSS-Total score and most RSS scales had
small-to-moderate positive zero-order associa-
tions with active coping strategies and moder-
ate-to-large associations with passive strategies,
and this pattern largely held when controlling for
religiousness. A previous study also reported
small-to-moderate negative associations for active
strategies and, consistent with our findings, mod-
erate-to-large positive associations for passive
strategies (Szcześniak & Timoszyk-Tomczak,
2020). We believe that the discrepancy for active
strategies is due to the different composition of
samples; our study involved people reporting a
specific r/s struggle whereas Szcześniak and
Timoszyk-Tomczak (2020) did not specify this
inclusion criterion and thus likely involved a
mixture of r/s strugglers and nonstrugglers.
Among people who are not focused on a specific
r/s struggle, we speculate that negative associa-
tions between levels of r/s struggles and active
coping strategies may reflect lower levels of men-
tal health in general. However, for people focused
on a specific r/s struggle, higher intensity struggles
might motivate both active and passive secular
coping strategies. We observed a similar pattern
with r/s coping strategies, where r/s struggles
associated with active strategies (e.g., religious
conversion) and passive strategies (e.g., passive
religious deferral). Future research is needed to test
these possibilities.
In sum, our findings suggest that more intense
r/s struggles may motivate diverse, psychologi-
cally focused attempts to adapt to the struggle (not
just religious coping). This is consistent with the
idea that the difficulties involved in r/s struggles
extend beyond r/s issues to more basic psycho-
logical concerns (Pargament & Exline, in press).
Providers may therefore want to assess secular
coping strategies and help steer clients toward
those that tend to be more helpful (e.g., active
coping, using emotional support, planning) and
away from those that are less helpful (e.g., sub-
stance use, denial, self-blame; Kato, 2015), with
the caveat that the effects of these strategies for r/s
struggles have not yet been established.
Findings for the Religion subscale approxi-
mated the average associations between RSS
and RCOPE subscales across all types of correla-
tions, which suggests that differentiating between
r/s coping techniques allowed a more fine-grained
understanding of links between r/s struggles and
r/s coping. These findings underscore the limits of
the Religion subscale as a measure of religious
coping.
Limitations
First, self-reports come with many well-known
limitations (Paulhus & Vazire, 2007), and using
self-reports for all variables raises the possibility
that findings were due to common method
variance. However, the many nonsignificant
zero-associations between variables and the
persistence of unique associations between r/s
struggles and coping when controlling for reli-
giousness are inconsistent with strong common
method variance effects (Lindell & Whitney,
2001). Nonetheless, we would recommend that
future work attempt to corroborate our findings
with other kinds of data, especially behavioral
data. Because many of the coping methods we
assessed are inherently behavioral, a conceptual
replication using behavioral coping data could be
particularly valuable.
Second, our correlational, cross-sectional
design prohibits causal conclusions. There are
likely to be bidirectional associations between r/s
 COPING WITH RELIGIOUS/SPIRITUAL STRUGGLES
struggles and coping, with potentially opposite
effects; whereas r/s struggles may increase cop-
ing, many coping methods may decrease r/s
struggles. Longitudinal and experimental studies
are needed to determine cause and directionality
(Reynolds et al., 2014). However, we believe that
the current data provide a valuable starting point
for understanding potentially complex associa-
tions between r/s struggles and coping.
Third, looking at a relatively exhaustive set of
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associations between r/s struggles and coping
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techniques increased the breadth of our study
but sacrificed depth. We could not go into
much detail about bivariate associations, any of
which could be important to explore in more
detail (e.g., the links between moral struggles
and religious purification). However, because
little research had been done in this area, we liken
our results to a rough map of the r/s struggles and
coping terrain that may be used to guide more in-
depth explorations of pairs or sets of associations.
Fourth, the relatively low internal consisten-
cies of the Brief Cope scales may have limited our
ability to detect associations between these scales
and r/s struggles. Low internal consistencies are
known to attenuate correlations (McCrae et al.,
2011). Though short scales were desirable in the
present study, future research may employ longer
measures of secular coping that tend to show
higher levels of internal consistency.
Finally, results were obtained with a sample of
predominantly Christian undergraduates from the
U.S. Therefore, our findings may not be general-
izable outside of these contexts.
Conclusion
Our study revealed some initial findings
regarding the relationships between r/s struggles
and r/s and secular coping techniques. Further-
more, statistically controlling for religiousness
allowed us to rule out plausible third variable
explanations. In brief, some r/s struggles associ-
ated with a broad range of r/s coping techniques
(positive associations for demonic, divine, and
interpersonal domains; negative for doubt),
whereas other r/s struggles associated with few
techniques (positive associations for moral;
negative for ultimate meaning). Thus, some
struggles may have led some from relying on
God to greater self-direction, and others away
from self-reliance to a search for life transforma-
tion through transformational religious coping
15
methods. In contrast, associations between r/s
struggles and secular coping techniques were
uniformly small to moderate and positive. As
discussed in more detail in the previous sections,
treatment providers may use these specific find-
ings to educate clients about techniques that may
be preferred or steer clients toward potentially
helpful strategies that would otherwise be ne-
glected. Perhaps most importantly from a
research standpoint, as our topic had previously
received little empirical attention, the results
provide a solid foundation for future studies.
Longitudinal studies focused on prospective
and directional associations, as well as more
in-depth investigations of select pairs or sets of
r/s struggles and coping techniques, are poten-
tially fruitful next steps.
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Received July 7, 2021
Revision received October 18, 2021
Accepted October 28, 2021 ▪