Spiritual Crisis in Mental Health
Life, Death & The Space Between with Dr. Amy Robbins
Dr. Amy Robbins
4.8 • 582 Ratings
🗓️ 17 November 2025
⏱️ 44 minutes
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Summary
I sit down with Dr. David Rosmarin, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School and a pioneer bridging the worlds of spirituality and clinical psychology. We explore a powerful, yet often ignored, truth in mental health: that for many, emotional distress is a crisis of meaning and spirit. David shares the fascinating research from his work at McLean Hospital, and we tackle the tough questions—are we over-medicalizing normal human anxiety? Could connecting with our spiritual nature be a more effective path to healing? This is a crucial conversation about bringing the soul back into mental health care.
00:00 Intro
02:42 The Genesis of Spirituality
05:12 How Do You Define Spirituality?
10:32 The Chasm Between Patient Needs and Clinical Training
12:08 Humanizing Care: From Medication to Meaning
18:21 A Case Study: Crisis of Meaning
20:37 The Four Steps to Face Anxiety
28:41 Anxiety as an Existential Opportunity
31:01 Spiritual Mentorship: Crisis and Healing Are One
34:40 Are We Over-Pathologizing Normal Anxiety?
37:17 The Benzodiazepine Crisis and Over-Medication
41:21 How to Find Dr. Rosmarin's Work
42:53 Conclusion
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Life, Death & the Space Between Dr. Amy Robbins
Exploring life, death, consciousness and what it all means.
Put your preconceived notions aside as we explore life, death, consciousness and what it all means on Life, Death & the Space Between.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, I'm Dr. Amy Robbins and welcome to life, death, and the space between. |
| 0:05.8 | This summer, an email came into my email box about spirituality and mental health at Harvard University. |
| 0:13.6 | And I knew at that moment that I needed to get David Rossmaron on the show. |
| 0:18.6 | David is an associate professor at Harvard Medical School and a program |
| 0:23.3 | director at McLean Hospital and the founder of the Center for Anxiety. But he also just started |
| 0:29.4 | this Institute for Spirituality. And I was so curious what it was about and why he sees spirituality as such a crucial part of the mental |
| 0:40.8 | health conversation. We had an incredible conversation. We talked about whether or not |
| 0:47.4 | mental health crises are spiritual crises. We talked about anxiety and depression and how we may or may not be overtreating them with |
| 0:57.0 | psychotropic meds, something you'll want to hear. We talked about where he sees the field of |
| 1:04.6 | mental health going if we talk about spirituality and what happens if we don't. So this is a |
| 1:10.7 | conversation I know you don't |
| 1:12.5 | want to miss. If you are interested in the intersection of spiritual health and mental health, |
| 1:17.9 | this is where I think the future is. So don't miss this conversation with Dr. David Rossmarin. |
| 1:27.3 | We need at our table of awareness, the logician, but equally we need the intuitive, we need the mystic. |
| 1:34.3 | I almost died. I was allowed to go to the very precipice of death, of life and death, |
| 1:39.3 | and look over the edge. And I was allowed to behold what was there and allowed to come back. Most people aren't. |
| 1:46.2 | When we talk about being aligned with our self or being aligned with our soul or hearing our |
| 1:50.8 | higher self, that's really what we're talking about is being connected to that divine part of |
| 1:56.0 | ourself, that light-filled part of us that is connected to God energy, that is connected to everybody here |
| 2:02.3 | and every experience we've ever had. If more doctors, more professionals can open up to use |
| 2:08.7 | intuitive gifts in their work, that's really important. Hi, I'm Dr. Amy Robbins, and welcome to life, |
| 2:16.2 | death, and the space between. I'm a licensed clinical |
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