(Re)-constructing a life-giving spirituality : narrative therapy with university students

Abstract

This qualitative participatory action research project examined how the spiritual dimension in pastoral therapy served as a life-giving resource to facilitate healing and growth in the lives of three Christian female university students. A postmodern epistomology, social construction theory and a contextual feminist theology informed the praxis of pastoral narrative therapy. The themes of subjectivity, meaning, religious development and religious experience were the focus of this study. Narrative practices were engaged in to utilise spiritual talk in the co-construction of an alternative relational identity with the research participants. The theory of religious development is discussed from a social constructionist perspective with an accent on a personal relationship with God as central to the developmental process. The religious experiences of the participants contributed to a spiritual awareness of being connected, in a dynamic way, to God, that transformed the clients' perceptions of problems and ways of addressing problems in their lives.