Lisa Miller, Ph.D.

Professor of Psychology at Columbia University and author of NYT Bestseller THE SPIRITUAL CHILD and THE AWAKENED BRAIN.

Lisa Miller, Ph.D., is the New York Times bestselling author of The Spiritual Child and a professor in the clinical psychology program at Teachers College, Columbia University. She is the founder and director of the Spirituality Mind Body Institute, the first Ivy League graduate program in spirituality and psychology, and for over a decade has held joint appointments in the department of psychiatry at Columbia University medical school. Her innovative research has been published in more than one hundred empirical, peer-reviewed articles in leading journals, including Cerebral Cortex, The American Journal of Psychiatry, and the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. She lives in Connecticut with her husband and three children.

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Philosopher's Notes on Lisa Miller, Ph.D.'s Books

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The Awakened Brain

by Lisa Miller, Ph.D.

Did you know that there’s a “Science of Spirituality”? Yep. There is. It’s fascinating. And, Lisa Miller is the pioneering researcher who created the field. This book is the distillation of her decades of work to help us apply her research to our (Heroic!) “Quests for an Inspired Life.” Lisa is also the founder and director of the Spirituality Mind Body Institute, the first Ivy League graduate program in spirituality and psychology. And, she is the New York Times bestselling author of The Spiritual Child and a professor in the clinical psychology program at Teachers College, Columbia University. As you’d expect, the book is packed with Big Ideas. I’m excited to share some of my favorites so let’s jump straight in!

Quotes by Lisa Miller, Ph.D.

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The subjects for whom spirituality and religion were highly important had a healthier neural structure than did those for whom spirituality and religion held medium, low, or no importance.

Lisa Miller, Ph.D.

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In quest, the brain is coherent and connected, its regions and networks in harmony. Essentially, the questing brain integrates our achieving and awakened awareness.

Lisa Miller, Ph.D.

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Our finding touched on the cornerstone of all faith traditions: that sacred, transcendent love ignites in service to one another.

Lisa Miller, Ph.D.

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High-risk people who built a spiritual muscle to respond to suffering were protected against the downward spiral the next time sorrow or disappointment came around, because they had cultivated a spiritual response.

Lisa Miller, Ph.D.

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For spiritually aware people across faith traditions—and including those without a faith tradition—the brain appeared able to protect itself from the long-standing neurological structures of depression.

Lisa Miller, Ph.D.

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This is perhaps the biggest revelation of the awakened brain: that it’s in our innate nature to build a better world. That what’s good for everyone is also what’s best for each one of us.

Lisa Miller, Ph.D.

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Among our participants, who represented the most populous world religious traditions—Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism—as well as the category of nonreligious, secular, or spiritual-but-not-religious, we found that people shared five common spiritual phenotypes: 1. Altruism; 2. Love of Neighbor as Self; 3. Sense of Oneness; 4. Practice of Sacred Togetherness; 5. Adherence to Moral Code.

Lisa Miller, Ph.D.

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Remarkably, I found that in the nationally representative sample of teens, adolescents with a strong personal spirituality were 35 to 75 percent less likely to experience clinical depression. No other mental health intervention, clinical or pharmacological, for adults or adolescents, has anything close to these prevention rates.

Lisa Miller, Ph.D.