City Research Online

Abstract

The study aimed to explore lived embodied spiritual experiences and spiritual journey over time and how therapists make sense of these experiences through narrative. An experience based narrative approach was used with multi-modal elicitation, where participants were encouraged to bring artefacts such as objects, music, prose and possibly movement to help them tell the story of their experiences. Stories of embodied spiritual experience from initial interviews with eight participants were selected and re-transcribed in poetic stanza form to give a sense of the embodied feeling of these experiences. These narratives were presented to participants at follow-up interviews for further reflection. Three participants were not available or did not wish to be interviewed a year later, so their initial interviews were analysed but their selected stories were not sent to them for comment. Dialogical Narrative Analysis was used as an overall framework for the analysis of follow-up interviews, paying attention to content, form, function and how stories are co-constructed during interviews with the researcher.

Spirituality meant different things to each participant and some would not use the term spiritual to describe themselves or their experiences. Stories of embodied experience in initial interviews suggested a sense of movement from within the body and travel into different dimensions and states as well as times of relative stillness, stagnation and frustration on the spiritual/ life journey. A sense of moving towards interconnection and integration (or the desire for these feelings) provided a backdrop to the follow-up interviews. Participants made sense of their desire to connect with themselves, others, nature and the divine realm, while helping others and transform society (as well as themselves) within their wider spiritual perspectives. Implications for counselling psychology, the potential of transpersonal psychology to inform counselling psychology and implications for further research are considered. The study has the potential to foreground human growth and evolution within existing holistic counselling psychology frameworks.

Publication Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology
Departments:	School of Health & Psychological Sciences > Psychology School of Health & Psychological Sciences > School of Health & Psychological Sciences Doctoral Theses Doctoral Theses

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