Making Sense of Suffering: A Preliminary Study of Changes in Religious Women Adjusting to Severe Adversity
✍ Scribed by Marleen S. Williams; Annette Jerome; Kirsten White; Aaron Fisher
- Publisher
- American Counseling Association
- Year
- 2006
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 85 KB
- Volume
- 50
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0160-7960
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
This qualitative study examined interviews from 25 women who held theistic beliefs from Christian, Islamic, or Jewish traditions. All had recently experienced severe adversity but reported they were coping well. Analysis illustrated changes in religious beliefs and attitudes they made as a result of learning to cope. Differences were found among the 3 religious groups. Findings of this preliminary study suggest that religious meaning and experience may change because of the process of learning to cope with severe adversity. Recommendations are made for counseling theistically oriented women. R ecently, the role of religious beliefs and values in mental health has received increased interest from psychologists and mental health researchers (Hill, 2000;Lukoff, Lu, & Turner, 1992;Richards & Bergin, 1997). Religious and spiritual dimensions can be some of the most important factors in shaping human experience, meaning, and behavior (Bergin, 1985;Fabreza, 1987;Krippner & Welch, 1992). Clients in psychotherapy often present with religious concerns and religious conceptualization of personal experiences. In a study of APA member psychologists, Shafranske and Maloney (1990) found that 60% reported that clients often talked about personal experiences in religious language and that at least 1 in 6 of their patients talked about issues that directly involved religion or spirituality. In another study (Lannert, 1991), 72% of the psychologists indicated that they had addressed religious or spiritual concerns in treatment.
Numerous studies have examined the helpfulness of religious beliefs and values in coping. Pargament et al. (1988) identified three distinctive religious strategies for maintaining a sense of agency and control in coping. Religious strategies have been described as active, internally initiated mechanisms for managing psychological distress (Folkman & Lazarus, 1988;Gil, Abrams,