Spiritual Health in a Secular Age: Perspectives from Developmental and Positive Psychologies

In an increasingly secular and pluralistic age marked by declining religious affiliation and rising individualized spiritual pursuits, accompanied by soaring mental health issues, the need for psychologically grounded perspectives on spiritual health is urgent. Drawing on developmental psychology, positive psychology, and psychology of religion and spirituality, this article introduces the Thrive Spiritual Health Framework. Spiritual health involves experiencing and responding to a loving source of transcendence in cognitive, affective, behavioral, and relational ways, and integrating those responses into narrative identities that inform who we are and who we belong to, shape our ethical ideals, inform virtues, and orient purpose—allowing us to sustain lives of love. The framework synthesizes six interrelated facets—transcendence, habits and rhythms, relationships and community, identity and narrative, vocation and purpose, and ethics and virtues (THRIVE)—through which spirituality nurtures thriving. Each facet is contextualizable across cultural and secular settings, highlighting both opportunities and vulnerabilities of contemporary spirituality. While individualized spiritual pathways may empower autonomy and innovation, they also risk fragmentation without relational and communal support. The framework provides an empirically grounded resource for research and practice, clarifying when spirituality promotes thriving and offering guidance for spiritual innovation in pluralistic contexts.