Psychosocial wellness among spiritual healing participants

The findings reported are based on an exploratory, comparison group study of participants in spiritual healing practices carried out over a 2-year period (1981-1983) in Baltimore, Md. In this study, participation in such forms of healing, which generally occurs in small groups, is related to various measures of psychosocial wellness defined as the emic construct of 'subjective health'. Interview data from regular participants in two types of healing group, charismatic (n = 83) and metaphysical (n = 93), were compared with regular utilizers of primary care (n = 137), using the same data collection procedures. Members of the two types of healing group differ on some social attribute data. Members of charismatic healing groups tend to be of slightly lower SES overall than members of metaphysical healing groups. Members of both types of healing groups, however, had significantly more positive scores on wellness measures than primary care patients, even when sex, age, marital status, illness severity and religiosity were controlled statistically. Findings suggest that such groups play a social support function among regular participants, and that participation in specific healing systems can be seen as a contextual variable which has an effect on subjective self-reports of health or, as defined here, wellness.