Religious – Spiritual Coping and the Therapeutic Role of Reflexivity on Mental Health: Focus on Young Adults’ Mental Illness
Religious – Spiritual Coping and the Therapeutic Role of Reflexivity on Mental Health: Focus on Young Adults’ Mental Illness
Monday, 7 July 2025: 13:45
Location: SJES003 (Faculty of Legal, Economic, and Social Sciences (JES))
Oral Presentation
These days, South Korea's suicide rate among young adults (25-34 years old) has been one of the highest in the OECD (2021). Korean young adults endure severe competitive pressures, economic conditions that make it hard to plan for the mid- to long-term of their lives, and overlapping cultural codes that make them unsure where to anchor their values and convictions. All these things make them vulnerable and weaken their mental health. Nonetheless, Korean youth are dropping out of established religions, which have traditionally provided them with values and meaning in life.
This study analyzes the religiosity of young adults who have tried extremal behaviors like suicide, self-harm, etc. in the South Korean young adults' structural background; "individualization under multiple pressures (Jung, 2023)". It focuses specifically on the process and meaning of religious reflexivity in extremal experiences, as well as how they use religious resources to cope with sentimental compulsions and emotional crises that persist.
Data were collected through one-on-one in-depth interviews with religious young adults who have experienced suicide and critical mental illness. In doing so, it develops a "substantial theory (Glazer and Strauss, 1967)" of religious resilience in young adults facing vulnerability, sustaining their lives through not just psychological counseling and therapy, but also transcendental horizons.
The tentative results show that religions give reasons for the fundamental desire to live from a vulnerable experience, and religious-spiritual resources and contents mitigate the tension of harsh mental pressures. Thus, they make the strategy for well-being by reflexivity stemming from the intertwined extremal and religious-spiritual experience.
It can help not only close the research gap on young adults' religiosity, vulnerability, and well-being in the South Korean context but also implicate additional viewpoints for policy for young adults by including religiosity and spirituality in institutional assistance, which is frequently limited to psychological viewpoints.
This study analyzes the religiosity of young adults who have tried extremal behaviors like suicide, self-harm, etc. in the South Korean young adults' structural background; "individualization under multiple pressures (Jung, 2023)". It focuses specifically on the process and meaning of religious reflexivity in extremal experiences, as well as how they use religious resources to cope with sentimental compulsions and emotional crises that persist.
Data were collected through one-on-one in-depth interviews with religious young adults who have experienced suicide and critical mental illness. In doing so, it develops a "substantial theory (Glazer and Strauss, 1967)" of religious resilience in young adults facing vulnerability, sustaining their lives through not just psychological counseling and therapy, but also transcendental horizons.
The tentative results show that religions give reasons for the fundamental desire to live from a vulnerable experience, and religious-spiritual resources and contents mitigate the tension of harsh mental pressures. Thus, they make the strategy for well-being by reflexivity stemming from the intertwined extremal and religious-spiritual experience.
It can help not only close the research gap on young adults' religiosity, vulnerability, and well-being in the South Korean context but also implicate additional viewpoints for policy for young adults by including religiosity and spirituality in institutional assistance, which is frequently limited to psychological viewpoints.