Spiritual Assessment Inventory

Abstract

The Spiritual Assessment Inventory (SAI) is an established, multidimensional psychometric instrument developed by Todd W. Hall and Keith J. Edwards to assess an individual’s spiritual maturity and developmental trajectory from an integrative psychoanalytic object relations perspective and a contemplative Christian spirituality framework. Grounded in the theoretical intersection of developmental psychology, attachment paradigms, and theological traditions of spiritual direction, the SAI operationalizes spiritual maturity not merely as intellectual assent or overt behavioral conformity, but as the affective and relational quality of an individual’s perceived experiential relationship with God, alongside their ongoing awareness of God in daily living. Across its evolution from the initial 43-item experimental version to the widely accepted 54-item full instrument, the inventory captures five primary clinical and developmental dimensions—Awareness of God, Realistic Acceptance, Disappointment, Grandiosity, and Instability—accompanied by a dedicated Impression Management control scale designed to detect social desirability biases and spiritual perfectionism. Items are scored along an authentic 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (Not at all true) to 5 (Very true). Extensive psychometric evaluations demonstrate sound internal consistency, with Cronbach’s alpha coefficients typically exceeding .85 to .90 across core dimensions (e.g., Instability, Awareness, and Disappointment), alongside robust construct, convergent, and discriminant validity demonstrated through systematic correlations with instruments such as the Bell Object Relations and Reality Testing Inventory (BORI) and measures of mature relational attachment. This article offers an exhaustive academic evaluation of the SAI, detailing its theoretical architecture, psychometric properties, structural stability, and applied utility across clinical psychology, pastoral psychotherapy, and empirical research in the psychology of religion.

Keywords

Spiritual Assessment Inventory, SAI, object relations theory, spiritual maturity, attachment to God, Todd W. Hall, Keith J. Edwards, psychometrics, relational spirituality, God image, contemplative spirituality, defensive grandiosity

Authors

The Spiritual Assessment Inventory was conceptualized, designed, and psychometrically standardized by Todd W. Hall, Ph.D., and Keith J. Edwards, Ph.D.:

• Todd W. Hall, Ph.D.: Professor of Psychology at the Rosemead School of Psychology, Biola University (La Mirada, California). Dr. Hall is a distinguished clinical psychologist, psychoanalytic scholar, and researcher specializing in relational spirituality, attachment theory, the integration of psychology and theology, and implicit relational knowledge. He has served as editor of the Journal of Psychology and Theology.
• Keith J. Edwards, Ph.D.: Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the Rosemead School of Psychology, Biola University. Dr. Edwards is an expert in psychometrics, research methodology, social psychology, and clinical integration, with decades of empirical scholarship focusing on personality development, object relations maturation, and the psychological dimensions of religious experience.

Institutional contact and academic correspondence regarding the development of the scale have historically been directed to the Rosemead School of Psychology, Biola University, 13800 Biola Avenue, La Mirada, CA 90639.

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Spiritual Assessment Inventory is to provide an empirically grounded, clinically sophisticated diagnostic and research instrument that operationalizes spiritual functioning through an affective, relational lens rather than an intellectual or dogmatic one. For decades, empirical investigations within the psychology of religion were hampered by self-report instruments that predominantly assessed religious orthodoxy, scriptural knowledge, frequency of attendance at religious services, or moralistic adherence. Such explicit measures routinely failed to differentiate between emotionally mature faith and pathological, defensive, or personality-disordered expressions of religious devotion, such as spiritual bypass, malignant narcissism cloaked in pious rhetoric, or obsessive-compulsive scrupulosity.

To overcome these methodological and diagnostic limitations, Hall and Edwards designed the SAI to bridge modern psychoanalytic object relations theory—specifically the developmental trajectories delineated by W. R. D. Fairbairn, Donald Winnicott, and Melanie Klein—with mature contemplative theological models of spiritual direction (e.g., William A. Barry and William J. Connolly). The instrument operates on the fundamental premise that an individual’s internal representation of God (the “God image”) functions psychologically as an internal object relation. Consequently, an individual relates to the divine utilizing the same implicit relational templates, defenses, emotional regulation strategies, and attachment anxieties that govern their human interpersonal attachments.

In clinical psychotherapy and pastoral counseling contexts, the SAI serves as a diagnostic roadmap. It helps practitioners identify whether a client’s spiritual struggles stem from neurotic guilt, narcissistic entitlement, borderline instability, or genuine existential wrestling. By differentiating between a cognitive awareness of God’s presence, an ability to tolerate relational ambiguity and negative affect toward God (Realistic Acceptance), feelings of betrayal and anger (Disappointment), perceived abandonment and separation anxiety (Instability), and omnipotent, compensatory defenses (Grandiosity), clinicians can tailor psychotherapeutic interventions. For example, a client exhibiting high Instability and low Realistic Acceptance requires relational stabilization and safety rather than cognitive-behavioral challenges to their theological belief systems.

In empirical research, the SAI provides psychometricians, developmental psychologists, and sociologists of religion with a nuanced, continuous metric to assess how spiritual maturity intersects with psychological well-being, affect regulation, trauma recovery, personality pathology, and physical health outcomes. It enables researchers to observe how internal working models of the divine shift across longitudinal interventions, clinical psychotherapy, and structured spiritual formation programs.

Psychological Construct

The psychological construct measured by the Spiritual Assessment Inventory is relational spiritual maturity. Rather than viewing spirituality as an isolated cognitive or moral faculty, the SAI conceptualizes it as a developmental, interpersonal capacity characterized by an internalized, secure, and differentiated relationship with a transcendent figure (God), paired with an open, perceptive awareness of that presence within everyday reality. The construct is decomposed into six empirically and theoretically derived dimensions:

1. Awareness of God

The Awareness dimension measures the respondent’s experiential sensitivity to God’s presence, activity, guidance, and communication in routine daily life, interpersonal relationships, nature, and personal contemplation. Drawing from contemplative traditions and Christian spiritual direction, this subscale captures an ongoing perceptual openness. High scorers report a continuous, lived sense of divine companionship and purpose (e.g., Item 1: “I have a sense of how God is working in my life”; Item 42: “I have a deep awareness of God’s involvement in my daily life”). Importantly, theoretical models predict that Awareness can exist at both high and low levels of object relations development: an individual may feel acutely aware of God while possessing an immature, punitive, or paranoid God image.

2. Realistic Acceptance

Grounded in the Kleinian concept of the “depressive position” and mature object constancy, Realistic Acceptance reflects an individual’s ability to maintain emotional connection, trust, and commitment in their relationship with God even during times of frustration, pain, unanswered prayer, or personal failure. It captures emotional honesty, non-defensiveness, and the capacity to express negative affect directly to God without terror of rejection or abandonment (e.g., Item 10: “When I am angry with God, I can tell Him”; Item 52: “I can acknowledge my faults and limitations to God without fear of rejection”). Mature Realistic Acceptance signifies that the individual views the divine not as an idealized vending machine or a persecutory judge, but as an enduring relational partner.

3. Disappointment

The Disappointment subscale measures the degree to which an individual experiences acute grief, frustration, resentment, and a sense of let-down by God, particularly when expectations of divine intervention, healing, or protection are violated (e.g., Item 22: “I feel resentful when God doesn’t come through for me”; Item 49: “I feel let down when God does not protect me from suffering”). While experiencing disappointment is a normative human reality, in psychometric profiles, elevated Disappointment coupled with low Realistic Acceptance reveals significant relational rupture, unresolved theological distress, and an inability to assimilate existential suffering into one’s worldview.

4. Grandiosity

Representing a classic narcissistic and omnipotent defense mechanism, the Grandiosity dimension assesses the degree to which an individual utilizes spiritual beliefs to inflate their self-worth, claim special or privileged divine status, or manipulate God to satisfy narcissistic demands. Items capture both explicit self-exaltation and subtle compensatory perfectionism (e.g., Item 5: “I feel I have to be perfect for God to love me”; Item 26: “I feel that I need to earn God’s love”). Clinically, Grandiosity reflects a failure of healthy developmental internalization: rather than experiencing unconditional acceptance, the individual feels compelled to maintain a grandiose, performance-based persona to stave off deep underlying feelings of shame, worthlessness, or abandonment.

5. Instability

The Instability subscale taps into anxious, borderline, and insecure attachment dynamics within the relationship with God. It operationalizes high relational anxiety, fear of abandonment, severe emotional volatility, and splitting defenses (e.g., Item 24: “My relationship with God feels unstable”; Item 36: “I sometimes feel that God has abandoned me”; Item 41: “My emotional feelings toward God fluctuate greatly”). Individuals scoring high on this dimension experience extreme oscillations between intimacy and terror, often feeling that divine favor is precarious, that God is arbitrarily punitive, or that their own sins cause God to abruptly withdraw His presence.

6. Impression Management

Incorporated into the expanded 54-item instrument, the Impression Management scale functions as a validity check to detect social desirability response biases, defensive denial, and spiritualized perfectionism (e.g., Item 35: “I never have doubts about my faith”; Item 39: “I never feel angry with God”; Item 48: “I always put God first in my life”). Because spiritual communities often enforce subtle normative expectations of unwavering faith, high scores on Impression Management alert clinicians and researchers that the respondent’s other subscale profiles may reflect a curated, defensively sanitized presentation rather than an authentic internal reality.

Theoretical Framework

The theoretical framework underpinning the Spiritual Assessment Inventory is fundamentally psychoanalytic, representing a synthesis of psychoanalytic object relations theory and contemplative spiritual theology. This conceptual framework posits that an individual’s experience of God is largely structured by the same cognitive-affective representations (internal working models) that govern human attachment relationships.

Object relations theorists such as Melanie Klein, W. R. D. Fairbairn, Donald Winnicott, and Otto Kernberg proposed that human psychological development proceeds through progressive stages of relational internalization. In infancy and early childhood, the self internalizes interactions with primary caregivers (objects), creating mental schemas consisting of a self-representation, an object-representation, and an linking affective state. Early developmental stages are marked by splitting—the inability to integrate loving (good) and frustrating (bad) experiences of the caregiver. As psychological maturity is achieved, the individual attains object constancy and moves into the “depressive position,” where they recognize that the same caregiver can be both gratifying and frustrating, leading to integrated, resilient relational capacity.

Hall and Edwards extended this framework directly to the domain of the divine. Because God is an unseen, transcendent entity, an individual’s experiential understanding of God (the God image, distinct from the abstract, intellectual God concept) is heavily projected from early internal object relations. Ana-Maria Rizzuto’s seminal 1979 work, The Birth of the Living God, established that individuals construct their God representation out of primary relational experiences with parents. The SAI draws on these foundational tenets:

• Primitive Defenses vs. Object Constancy: Primitive object relations development is characterized by splitting, projection, severe anxiety, and defensive grandiosity. In the SAI, this is captured by the Instability and Grandiosity subscales. Conversely, mature object relations development is characterized by emotional ambivalence tolerance, integration of negative affect, and object constancy. This is captured by the Realistic Acceptance subscale.
• Attachment Theory Dynamics: John Bowlby’s attachment theory, along with subsequent attachment-to-God scholarship (e.g., Lee A. Kirkpatrick), directly aligns with the SAI framework. Insecure-anxious attachment manifests as hyperactivation of distress, preoccupation with abandonment, and emotional turmoil (SAI Instability), whereas insecure-avoidant attachment manifests as emotional detachment, self-reliance, or compensatory superiority (SAI Grandiosity). Secure attachment is manifested through balanced emotional exploration and reliable safe-haven dynamics (SAI Realistic Acceptance and Awareness).
• Contemplative Spiritual Direction: The framework explicitly draws upon classic spiritual direction literature, such as William A. Barry and William J. Connolly’s The Practice of Spiritual Direction (1982) and Joann Wolski Conn’s Spirituality and Personal Maturity (1989). These contemplative theologians argue that authentic spiritual maturity requires an awareness of God’s presence embedded within the messiness of ordinary human experience, coupled with radical affective honesty where an individual brings their genuine anger, grief, and doubts into dialogue with God.

Validity

The construct, convergent, discriminant, and criterion-related validity of the Spiritual Assessment Inventory has been documented across numerous empirical investigations involving clinical populations, university undergraduates, seminary students, and community adult cohorts.

Construct and Convergent Validity

In the foundational psychometric investigations conducted by Hall and Edwards (1996, 2002), the construct validity of the SAI was rigorously evaluated by correlating its subscales with the Bell Object Relations and Reality Testing Inventory (BORI), an established psychoanalytic measurement tool assessing four primary object relations pathologies: Alienation (ALN), Insecure Attachment (IA), Egocentricity (EGC), and Social Incompetence (SI).

• Instability displayed strong, statistically significant positive correlations with BORI Alienation (r = .58, p < .001) and Insecure Attachment (r = .52, p < .001). This confirms that individuals who suffer from interpersonal alienation and attachment insecurity relate to God with comparable emotional instability, terror of abandonment, and relational unpredictability.
• Realistic Acceptance showed significant negative correlations with BORI Alienation (r = -.38, p < .001) and Egocentricity (r = -.31, p < .001), while correlating positively with measures of healthy ego functioning, mature empathy, and emotional stability.
• Awareness of God demonstrated moderate positive correlations with mature religious practices, prayer frequency, intrinsic religious orientation (measured via the Religious Orientation Scale), and mystical experience scales, confirming that the subscale accurately measures perceptual and experiential engagement with spiritual realities.
• Disappointment correlated positively with measures of existential anxiety, spiritual struggle, and situational stress, confirming its sensitivity to theological and relational ruptures during times of personal trauma or crisis.

Discriminant and Incremental Validity

Discriminant validity has been demonstrated by showing that the SAI’s relational dimensions are distinct from mere theological knowledge, general cognitive intelligence, and basic denominational affiliation. Multiple regression analyses have repeatedly demonstrated that the SAI explains unique variance in psychological well-being, depression, and general psychiatric symptom distress (as measured by instruments like the SCL-90-R and BDI-II) above and beyond traditional measures of religious involvement (such as church attendance frequency or biblicist orthodoxy).

The inclusion of the Impression Management subscale further solidifies validity. Studies examining social desirability utilizing the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale (MCSDS) confirmed that the SAI Impression Management subscale effectively identifies individuals engaged in defensive religious responding, allowing researchers to statistically control for or exclude compromised response sets.

Reliability

The Spiritual Assessment Inventory possesses strong, well-replicated psychometric reliability across both internal consistency and temporal stability metrics.

Internal Consistency

In initial validation studies (Hall & Edwards, 1996) based on 449 respondents, Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for the original subscales demonstrated high internal reliability across the primary object-relational scales:

• Instability: α = .88
• Defensiveness / Disappointment: α = .91
• Awareness: α = .90
• Realistic Acceptance: α = .76
• Grandiosity: α = .52 (in the initial 43-item developmental version)

Recognizing the psychometric vulnerability of the initial Grandiosity factor (α = .52), Hall and Edwards substantially revised and expanded the inventory in subsequent psychometric investigations (Hall & Edwards, 2002), culminating in the 54-item instrument. In the standardized 54-item version, the internal consistencies across diverse adult samples were notably strengthened:

• Awareness of God (19 items): α = .91 to .95
• Realistic Acceptance (7 items): α = .80 to .86
• Disappointment (7 items): α = .84 to .89
• Instability (9 items): α = .84 to .88
• Grandiosity (7 items): α = .73 to .78 (demonstrating significant improvement over the early pilot version)
• Impression Management (5 items): α = .71 to .76

Test-Retest Reliability

Temporal stability was established through test-retest reliability evaluations over two- to four-week intervals. Initial two-week test-retest coefficients reported in the 1996 literature yielded:

• Instability: r = .94
• Defensiveness / Disappointment: r = .93
• Awareness: r = .83
• Realistic Acceptance: r = .59
• Grandiosity: r = .56

In the fully revised 54-item instrument, stability coefficients improved across all subscales, with four-week test-retest correlations consistently falling between .78 and .91, indicating that the SAI measures stable cognitive-affective representations rather than fleeting, situational mood states.

Factor Analysis

The structural integrity and dimensional dimensionality of the Spiritual Assessment Inventory have been corroborated via both Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA).

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

During scale construction, Hall and Edwards conducted an initial EFA with 193 university subjects, followed by a second principal components factor analysis with varimax and oblimin rotations on an expanded sample of 449 subjects. The scree plot and Kaiser-Guttman criterion (eigenvalues > 1.0) yielded a robust five-factor solution in the initial development. Eigenvalues for the extracted factors ranged from 11.14 down to 1.56, collectively accounting for 50.5% of the total variance. Factor loadings for primary items cleanly loaded on their designated latent factors (> .40 to .78) with negligible cross-loadings, demonstrating distinct psychological constructs corresponding to Awareness, Instability, Disappointment, Realistic Acceptance, and Grandiosity.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

Subsequent psychometric testing of the 54-item instrument utilized Confirmatory Factor Analysis to validate the proposed structural model across independent clinical and non-clinical populations (Hall & Edwards, 2002). Structural equation modeling assessed competing models: a unidimensional general spirituality model, an uncorrelated orthogonal model, and a correlated multidimensional model representing the distinct object-relational dimensions.

The correlated multi-factor model demonstrated superior fit to the empirical data across standard goodness-of-fit indices:

• Comparative Fit Index (CFI): .91 to .94 (indicating acceptable to good fit)
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI): .90 to .93
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): .048 to .056 (90% CI [.042, .061]), satisfying standard criteria for close model fit (< .06)
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): .052 to .059

Item loadings across all latent constructs in the CFA were statistically significant (p < .001), with standardized loadings predominantly ranging between .55 and .84. The CFA verified that the Awareness and Quality of Relationship dimensions function as interdependent yet conceptually distinct domains, confirming that an individual’s conscious awareness of God operates somewhat orthogonally to the specific emotional stability or defensive maturity of their God image.

Instrument / Measurement Tool

The Spiritual Assessment Inventory is a self-administered, objective psychometric questionnaire. Below is the detailed breakdown of the instrument’s operational structure:

• Test Type: Multi-dimensional self-report psychological inventory.
• Target Population: Adults and older adolescents (ages 17+); applicable in clinical psychotherapy, pastoral counseling, spiritual direction, and empirical psychological research.
• Total Item Count: 54 items.
• Administration Time: Approximately 15 to 20 minutes.
• Authentic Response Scale: 5-point Likert scale formatted as follows:
  • 1 = Not at all true
  • 2 = Slightly true
  • 3 = Moderately true
  • 4 = Substantially true
  • 5 = Very true
• Subscale Item Composition:
  • Awareness of God (19 items): Items 1, 6, 8, 12, 14, 16, 17, 21, 23, 27, 29, 31, 33, 37, 40, 42, 45, 47, 50
  • Realistic Acceptance (7 items): Items 4, 10, 19, 25, 34, 43, 52
  • Disappointment (7 items): Items 2, 7, 13, 22, 28, 38, 49
  • Grandiosity (7 items): Items 5, 11, 15, 20, 26, 32, 44
  • Instability (9 items): Items 3, 9, 18, 24, 30, 36, 41, 46, 51
  • Impression Management (5 items): Items 35, 39, 48, 53, 54
• Scoring Rules:
  • All items are directly scored from 1 to 5 according to the participant’s endorsement.
  • Subscale scores are calculated either by summing the items within each subscale or by calculating the mean item score (sum of items divided by the number of items in that subscale), yielding a subscale metric ranging from 1.0 to 5.0.
  • Higher scores on Awareness of God reflect greater perceived sensitivity to and daily intimacy with God.
  • Higher scores on Realistic Acceptance reflect mature object constancy, emotional resilience, and the capacity to express authentic affect to God.
  • Higher scores on Disappointment reflect elevated relational hurt, resentment, and struggle with the divine.
  • Higher scores on Grandiosity indicate narcissistic defenses, perfectionistic performance orientation, and omnipotent entitlement.
  • Higher scores on Instability signify borderline relational dynamics, acute abandonment anxiety, and emotional splitting.
  • Higher scores on Impression Management indicate defensive denial, religious perfectionism, and socially desirable responding. Profiles with exceptionally high Impression Management scores (> 4.0 mean) should be interpreted with caution.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Spiritual Assessment Inventory was initially published in 1996 by Todd W. Hall and Keith J. Edwards in the Journal of Psychology and Theology, with structural revisions, psychometric expansions, and CFA validations published in 2002. The instrument is copyrighted by the authors (Todd W. Hall and Keith J. Edwards).

For non-commercial academic research, educational training, and dissertation projects, the authors have traditionally permitted use of the SAI free of charge upon request, provided proper scholarly citation is maintained and the instrument is not altered. Clinicians seeking to utilize the SAI for commercial applications, private practice assessments, or institutional diagnostics should contact the primary author, Dr. Todd W. Hall (Rosemead School of Psychology, Biola University), to obtain explicit written authorization, scoring rubrics, and the official interpretive manual.

References

• Barry, W. A., & Connolly, W. J. (1982). The practice of spiritual direction. Harper & Row.
• Bell, M. D. (1991). Bell Object Relations and Reality Testing Inventory (BORI): Manual. Western Psychological Services.
• Bowlby, J. (1988). A secure base: Parent-child attachment and healthy human development. Basic Books.
• Brokaw, B. F., & Edwards, K. J. (1994). The relationship of God image to level of object relations development. Journal of Psychology and Theology, 22(4), 352–371. https://doi.org/10.1177/009164719402200411
• Conn, J. W. (1989). Spirituality and personal maturity. Paulist Press.
• Fairbairn, W. R. D. (1952). Psychoanalytic studies of the personality. Tavistock Publications.
• Hall, T. W., & Brokaw, B. F. (1995). The relationship of spiritual maturity to level of object relations development and God image. Pastoral Psychology, 43(6), 373–391. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02253811
• Hall, T. W., & Edwards, K. J. (1996). The initial development and factor analysis of the Spiritual Assessment Inventory. Journal of Psychology and Theology, 24(3), 233–246. https://doi.org/10.1177/009164719602400305
• Hall, T. W., & Edwards, K. J. (2002). The Spiritual Assessment Inventory: A cognitive-affective and relational measure of spirituality. Journal of Psychology and Theology, 30(4), 341–357. https://doi.org/10.1177/009164710203000408
• Kirkpatrick, L. A. (2005). Attachment, evolution, and the psychology of religion. Guilford Press.
• Klein, M. (1946). Notes on some schizoid mechanisms. The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 27, 99–110.
• Rizzuto, A.-M. (1979). The birth of the living God: A psychoanalytic study. University of Chicago Press.
• Winnicott, D. W. (1965). The maturational processes and the facilitating environment: Studies in the theory of emotional development. International Universities Press.

13. Items of the Scale (Questionnaire)