Spirituality and the Sense of Self: An Inductive Analysis

The investigation examined the understanding of spirituality as related to the sense of self. Self-reports from semi-structured interviews of participants with a stated value for spirituality are analyzed inductively. Using a Rogerian understanding of self, the analysis identified six themes related to how participants understand spirituality as related to their sense of self. The themes demonstrate that spirituality is a key dimension to self understanding and is part of relationships, social engagement, an understanding of meaning and purpose in life, and an overall sense of happiness and joy. Keywords: Spirituality, Self, Inductive Analysis Psychological research on the topic of spirituality has focused on particular aspects of spirituality: its role in resiliency (Krumrei, Mahoney, & Pargament, 2009), the relationship of spiritual practices to mental health (Cummings, Ivan, Carson, Stanley, & Pargament, 2014), and spirituality as a resource for coping (Bryant-Davis & Wong, 2013) or stress reduction (Shapiro, Astin, Bishop, & Cordova, 2005). Other research has considered personality type in relationship to spirituality or spiritual practice (Saroglou & Munoz-Garcia, 2008; Simpson, Newman, & Fuqua, 2007). The measures of spirituality used in research generally conceive of spirituality as something outside of the person or as a personal habit, preference, or choice (Kapuscinski & Masters, 2010). In treatment and counseling, spirituality is typically viewed as an alternative or ancillary approach requiring a special set of competencies (Vieten et al., 2013). In addressing the problem of research on spirituality from a scientific perspective, Cairns (2011) summarized the challenge for research on this topic in this way: Our problem is all about perspective. We usually try to describe spirituality from within our acquired belief systems. This is self-limiting and constrains our understanding of both the origins of spirituality and the beliefs of others. It particularly creates a problem in heterogeneous communities with a wide range of often-contradictory explanations for life. I think we should set aside our various culturally driven beliefs that tell us how things work and what to think. With a clean slate we can start to consider the phenomena we describe as spirituality… (p. 187) Offering a similar critique of research on spirituality, Robertson (2007) contends that many investigations of spirituality in psychology and other sciences are primarily based on religious or metaphysical understandings of spirituality. In place of religious or metaphysical approaches to spirituality, he recommends pursuing research of spirituality using a paradigm of the self and the notion of personal integration of spirituality with the self. A small number of studies have considered spirituality in terms of the self and personal identity. Morga (2014) presented a narrative analysis based on semi-structured interviews with a participant in her early 20’s of Anglo Asian Muslim background. In describing her identity, Morga found that, “this narrative implies that religion, for some people, seems to have an important role in the construction of their identity….her faith and religion seems to play a constructive role for pluralism and integration. From her narrative it