Academy for
Spiritual Renewal and Positive Mental Health
Description of the Spiritual Renewal Academy
The purpose of the Academy for Spiritual Renewal and Positive Mental Health is to teach principles and practices of spiritual renewal that can help you gain a better understanding of your inherent individual worth and goodness and how to draw upon the resources of your spirituality to overcome adversity, find healing and growth, nurture positive mental health, and live with peace of mind and heart.
The courses in the Academy are grounded in research-based spiritual resources that the developers created, used, and evaluated during their careers as psychologists, mental health treatment providers, and pastoral professionals. The Academy contains multi-media courses that teach about spiritual processes, principles, and practices and how these resources can promote spiritual renewal and positive mental health. Each course contains experiential activities to help you apply the principles and practices in your life. At the conclusion of each course, you will also be invited to complete a spirituality self-assessment questionnaire that will give you feedback about your progress.
An Invitation to Spiritual Renewal
Our spiritual self – or our spiritual identity – has two main parts: who we are now, and who we might become. First, we can learn to accept the truth about our spiritual goodness – accepting us as we now are – embracing ourselves as more than enough. Second, we can strive to become our best selves – moving towards who we might become. As we do both of these things, we are in the process of growing and becoming. We nurture our sense of spirituality by seeking, understanding, nurturing, honoring, and sharing our true selves.
Spiritual renewal results from a process of recovering the spiritual qualities within us that have been neglected, forgotten, or distorted as a result of difficult experiences in our lives. Gratefully, our spirituality can be renewed and even enhanced. The Spiritual Renewal courses will help bring you quietly back to yourself: back to who you are, back to a spiritual understanding of your importance, and back to a sense of being home with yourself where you can enjoy a sense of completeness, wholeness, and peacefulness in your life. We will discuss how who you are inside is more important than what your accomplishments are or what you do or look like. The courses will help you understand how you can empower yourself to reach out for something better, deeper, and more profound. We invite you to embark on this journey of inspiration and growth!
Courses
Course 1 invites you to clarify the meaning of spirituality and to begin and fully engage in your journey toward spiritual and emotional renewal and growth.
Course 2 affirms the power of faith and spiritual convictions and invites you to think about how your own faith can help you in your journey of renewal and growth.
Spiritual Renewal for Positive Mental Health Questionnaire
After you complete each course, you will be given the opportunity to complete a spiritual renewal questionnaire that will help you gain greater insight into your spiritual beliefs and resources and how you can draw upon them in your journey of growth. Your responses are confidential and will never be shared in a way that would enable anyone to link your name and identity with your survey responses. After you complete the questionnaire, you will be sent a confidential summary of your results as feedback to assist you as you take the spiritual renewal courses.
About the Course Developers
The 12 courses listed above are based on content from a workbook titled “Spiritual Renewal” that was written by Michael E. Berrett, Randy K. Hardman, and P. Scott Richards and that was used for 20 years in a mental health treatment facility to help patients in healing and recovery from eating disorders. With a generous grant from the John Templeton Foundation, leaders of the Bridges Institute for Spiritually Integrated Psychotherapies and Solihten Institute collaborated with mental health professionals, researchers, scholars, and pastoral professionals to refine and enhance the content from the spiritual renewal workbook into online courses for the Academy for Spiritual Renewal and Positive Mental Health. The collaborators represent many religious traditions within Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. The spiritual principles, practices, and wisdom described in the courses have been taught for centuries by the great religious traditions of the world. Each course teaches principles and practices that have also been shown through research and clinical practice to promote emotional healing and positive mental health. Below is a list of those who contributed to the development of the content of the spiritual renewal courses.
- Michael E. Berrett, PhD, Retired psychologist, former CEO, Center for Change
- Randy K. Hardman, PhD, Retired psychologist, Brigham Young University-Idaho
- P. Scott Richards, PhD, President, Bridges Institute for Spiritually Integrated Psychotherapies
- Marcia Richards, BA, Vice-President, Bridges Institute for Spiritually Integrated Psychotherapies
- Steve Duson, Vice-President, Solihten Institute
- Fonda Latham, Vice-President, Solihten Institute
- Robert Johnson, MS, President/CEO, Solihten Institute
- Russell Siler Jones, ThD, LCMHCS, Director of Residency, CareNet Counseling
- Carrie M. York, PhD, President, The Alkaram Institute
- Ofra Mayseless, PhD, University of Haifa, Head of Center for the Study of the Human Spirit
- Aya Rice, PhD Candidate, University of Haifa
- Joseph M. Currier, PhD, Professor of psychology, University of South Alabama
- Thomas G. Plante, Ph.D., Professor and Director of Applied Spirituality Institute, Santa Clara University
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