Przemiana duchowa jako kluczowe pojęcie psychologii rozwoju człowieka

Spirituality has remained a controversial subject matter of psychological research. In spite of this fact, the volume of research grows alongside the development of civilization processes in the Western world. Mostly, these are analyses of spirituality in the substantial approach, particularly that recognizing spirituality as what the research subjects consider it to be. The views of psychologists of interest in the present analysis can be divided into: overt and hidden ones. The first kind includes concepts of philosophical, psychoanalytic, and humanistic origins (usually not subjected to operationalization); the second kind are those whose authors were not in need of recognizing them as theories of spirituality; nevertheless, they seem to have much in common with spirituality. The proposed solution is spirituality as the process of a unique transformation whose outcome is a more or less successful coping with an existential situation. Since it is possible to distinguish provisionally two types of these situations: one of an ultimate character (transience), and one of a non-ultimate (the existential limitations are more or less harmful); likewise there are two types of possible transformation. In both cases, the transformation is a self-creation unique for a particular kind of an existential situation. The understanding of spirituality as a transformation allows for its operationalization through measuring this experience assumed here to be a marker of the feeling of sacredness. One can measure this experience before a particular situation takes place as well as after the period considered the endpoint of coping with this situation occurs. Spirituality – the transcendence of limitations – is a process occurring within a unique existential context. At the end of the article, the features of a spiritual transformation have been described in order to show a wider account of the process.