An Interview with Dr Marie-Therese Proctor: Reliance on God as a Core Virtue in Spirituality and a Cardinal Construct in Psychological Wellbeing

Associate Professor Bagher Ghobary Bonab teaches and researches in the School of Education and Psychology at the University of Tehran. His innovative research spans mental health issues of children and adolescents, relationships within families and communities, the understanding and measurement of Muslim spirituality and religiosity. He is also interested in the associations between religiosity and mental health. Examples of his research that integrates religion, spirituality, and mental health issues include projects such as Development of Spiritual Experience Scale for University Students in Islamic Context, Development of Reliance on God Scale Based on Islamic Doctrines, Relationship between Reliance on God and Self-esteem, Studying Influential Factors in the Social Adaptation of Students of Martyred Families and Regular Students and Ways of Attracting Youth to Mosques as a Basis of Keeping the Identity of Islamic Culture. He is the author of seven books and 59 published papers out of which 33 papers are related to religion and spirituality.

Marie-Therese Proctor is a psychologist and researcher, specializing in spirituality, attachment to God and its relationship to psychological health; paediatric life-limiting illnesses & carers? psycho-social issues. Her PhD research included the development of tools for assessing explicit and implicit attachment to God representations. She also has a background in dealing with disability and illness related issues. She is currently attached to the Oncology Dept at The Children?s Hospital at Westmead; and holds Research Fellowships at the School of Psychology, University of Western Sydney, the Australian College of Ministries and the Australian Centre for Studies of Spirituality.

Recorded in Sydney on July 2008 at the PASS Conference, UWS