Can science and spiritualism not join hands to solve many psychological problems ?

For many of the psychological problems like anxiety , depression , obsessions the nature of treatment suggested by psychiatry and spiritualism has lot of commonality like relaxation , deep breathing , self suggestion , counter conditioning etc. Don’t you think a more concrete effort could be made to bring these two approaches together ?
Edit – The most popular psychotherapy – CBT – Cognitive Behavior Therapy has so many similarities with meditation and other techniques advocated by many spiritual organisations like Brahamakumari , Art of living , Vippashana etc.

Great question!

I believe that the past polarisation of science for bodily health and spirituality for mental health is clearly falling by the wayside. Once science found that stress can be a major cause for so many physical ailments, most of them so serious too, it has begun sincerely to look at mental health as an extremely important area to examine and find answers for. However, when it comes to the mind, spirituality remains far ahead of science due to the long head-start it has had in addressing its various aspects through methodologies that may not strictly be ‘scientific, but have been statistically sound. Science continues to look at the state of mind as chemically triggered which is simply the immediate cause and not the root cause. It might take ages, but a time ought to come when science would have to begin accepting the spiritual wisdom in this area and actually strengthen it through its rigorous methods of verification, since spirituality has mostly limited itself to prescribing various solutions but not delving into the how and why of those time tested answers that have historically been established through trial and error experiments. Meanwhile, there is a closed-minded bias amongst the so-called intellectuals to summarily label spiritual solutions as last-ditch gambles, ignoring the credence they deserve based on empirical evidence of their efficacy. Nevertheless, I have noticed that truly matured scientists realize that even science can not command 100% credence with respect to its currently acknowledged truths and understandings, especially when it comes to such an intricately and intriguingly complex mechanism as of the mind.

You are thus absolutely on the dot when you say science has to join hands with spirituality to improve its own understanding and success in handling mind-related issues. Social sciences in particular have to deliberately move closer to spiritual wisdom generated through generations of experience based on experimentations.

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