The Spiritual Child: The New Science of Raising Healthy Children

“In 1994, I began working in the psychiatric ward of a hospital in New York. Adolescents who had experienced traumas such as parents’ divorce or the death of a parent came to my clinic. They felt their world had been shattered, or they suffered from problems such as drug and alcohol addiction, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts,” Lisa Miller, professor of clinical psychology at Columbia University, told me in an interview.

Over the past two decades, Miller conducted extensive research that was published in prestigious psychology and psychiatry journals.

“At some point, I began to notice an interesting phenomenon that I didn’t know how to explain—that adolescents and teenagers who had a spiritual foundation, a relationship with something greater than themselves, exhibited a faster recovery than those who lacked the same connection,“ she said. ”But in 1994, there was not even a single peer-reviewed scientific study on the subject of spirituality in adolescents and teenagers.”

Dina Gordon: Was their spirituality connected to religious belief?

Lisa Miller: “Not necessarily. Their spirituality was connected to a personal, inner sense of appreciation and recognition of a higher power that transcends humans. This is a force that can manifest in different ways for different people. It can be the creator of the world, a divine being, nature, the universe, and more. Some people, when they encounter difficulties, turn to God; others meditate, go for walks in nature, or ask what the higher power wants from them.