Vivências religiosas e espirituais na constituição da personalidade: reflexões teóricas a partir da Psicologia da Religião, da Psicanálise e da Psicologia Existencial

Abstract

Religious and spiritual experiences occupy a significant place in human experience, permeating processes of socialization, meaning-making, value construction, coping with suffering, and subjective organization. In the field of Psychology, although religiosity and spirituality recurrently emerge in clinical practice, in the formation of bonds, in family life, and in cultural practices, they are still frequently addressed insufficiently in academic training and scientific production. This theoretical essay aims to discuss possible articulations between religious experiences, spirituality, and personality constitution, considering contributions from the Psychology of Religion, Personality Psychology, Psychoanalysis, and Existential Psychology. It is based on the understanding that personality is not constituted in an isolated or exclusively intrapsychic manner, but in relation to familial, cultural, symbolic, affective, and existential factors. It is argued that religious and spiritual experiences may participate in subjective constitution by offering frameworks of meaning, belonging, values, images of the sacred, ways of coping with finitude, and ethical references for the relationship with oneself, with others, and with the world. At the same time, it is emphasized that such experiences should not be understood in an idealized way, as they may both favour maturation, integration, and hope, and produce guilt, fear, moral rigidity, and psychological suffering, depending on how they are transmitted, lived, and elaborated. It is concluded that religiosity and spirituality constitute relevant dimensions for an integral understanding of the subject, requiring Psychology to adopt an ethical, critical, technically grounded listening stance that is sensitive to the complexity of human experience.