ABSTRACT
This chapter positions the rationale for the emergence of this collection, in which spiritual, religious and faith-based practices amidst chronic illness are shown to support mental wellness. Given evidence-based empirical research investigating participant’s experiences of mental wellness in the context of spirituality, religion, and faith widely defined, this chapter begins by describing chronic illness in the context of wellness, and the framework of chronicity. The collection represents dynamic and diverse views and perspectives from around the globe, including the views of health care practitioners and community members, and research conducted in rural and urban spaces. As editors and co-authors, we argue in this chapter that the themes of living and working with chronic illness, invite wellness and spirituality to mirror each other regardless of the type of condition, faith base, or region in which the studies have taken place. Since mental wellness was a key concept in each of these chapters, we discuss how mental wellness is vital to practitioners that engage with spirituality or religious aspects of patients coping and chronicity in various ways. Mental illness is most often set against the gestalt of a more traditional notion of biomedical dualities, where treatment and recovery may not include domains outside of health care practices, and mental health is measured in physical or objective ways, rather than as a continuum, a recovery journey, or a process of transformation towards wellness. A key contribution of this collection is how study findings revealed experiences of those living with chronic conditions involved aspects of spirituality and mental wellness in diverse ways. We then conclude by describing each chapter and its primary contributions.
