Spirituality – including religiousness – is valued across the globe by the vast majority of the human population. The association of spirituality with health is wide-ranging and largely salubrious. Much of the extant, compiled, empirical evidence-base (i.e., edited and authored books), though of great worth, is focused on religious activity and commitment, and medical diagnosis, as opposed to engagement with specific spiritual principles and health more broadly construed, or as consistent with the World Health Organization’s comprehensive definition of health and well-being. Indeed, the explicit inclusion of the physical, mental, and social components thereof. To address this limitation in the state-of-the-science, over 100 scholars contributed to a recently published edited book entitled, Handbook of Spirituality, Health, and Well-Being: A Psychological Perspective (Webb, 2026). This volume addresses: (1) relevance and historical development, (2) foundations, (3) outcomes, (4) predictors, (5) contextual issues, (6) emerging areas, and (7) limitations, future directions, and the bottom line. This book project included incorporating the RiTE Model of Spirituality as an organizing principle. Thereby, to expand the extant focus on the Ritualistic (i.e., structured; e.g., religious activity and commitment) dimension of spirituality, to explicitly focus also on the Theistic (i.e., non-structured) and Existential (i.e., non-theistic, yet still transcendent) dimensions of spirituality. This presentation will (1) provide a brief overview of (a) the Handbook and (b) the RiTE Model, and thus (2) allow researchers, clinicians, policymakers, and consumers to effectively advocate for the inclusion of spirituality as a necessary component of comprehensive, ethical healthcare.
Spirituality, Health, and Well-Being: The RiTE Model of Spirituality as an Organizing Principle