Though the relation of spirituality to self has long been recognized in established spiritual
and religious systems, serious scientific interest in spirituality and its relation to identity has
only started to grow in the past 20 years. This paper overviews the literature on spirituality
and identity. Particular attention is given to describing and critiquing conventional and
transpersonal perspectives with emphasis given to empirically testable theories. Using
MacDonald’s (1997, 2000) five dimensional model of spirituality, a structural model of
spirituality is proposed as is a model of spiritual identity formation
