Research
Overview of Dr. Hall’s Research: Relational Spirituality and Leadership
For the past fifteen years, Dr. Hall has been developing a broad theory of “relational spirituality” that integrates a relational theological anthropology with various relational theories from psychology and related fields (e.g., attachment theory, emotional information processing theory, affective neuroscience, and relational psychoanalysis). He is also working on developing a relational theory of leadership.
Dr. Hall is working on a new book with InterVarsity Press that will articulate a relational spirituality paradigm for spiritual transformation. In brief, relational spirituality is an approach to sanctification/spiritual transformation that has three integral psychological-theological-spiritual organizing principles: 1) the relational nature of the Trinitarian God and of humans made in God’s image; 2) loving presence as the goal of sanctification; and 3) relational process as the means of sanctification.
This theoretical perspective informs all of Dr. Hall’s empirical research. Various aspects of this theory are laid out in several articles, which you can download using the links below, and in Dr. Hall’s latest book, co-authored with Dr. John Coe:
Psychology in the Spirit: Contours of a Transformational Psychology.
Christian Spirituality and Mental Health: A Relational Spirituality Paradigm
Psychoanalysis, Attachment, and Spirituality Part I: The Emergence of Two Relational Traditions
Psychoanalysis, Attachment, and Spirituality Part II: The Spiritual Stories We Live By
Relational Schemas in Processing One’s Image of God and Self
