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Recognizing Student Needs for Psychospiritual Development: A Preliminary Case Study
Abstract
This chapter presents a case study of a young adult in a psychospiritual crisis that nearly undermined her academic goals. This crisis, like many that I have observed as a professor of counseling and psychology, convinced me that students would benefit from a structured self-inquiry curriculum that mentored a person-centered process of psychospiritual development. This realization emerged from my advising work with many students who were experiencing developmentally-appropriate quandaries without sufficient self-knowledge or appropriate mentoring. These quandaries, which often escalated into crises, affected their personal lives and academic success, sometimes constraining career aspirations. “Kate” was a reasonably well-adjusted young adult who exemplified these issues.
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Person-centered spiritual maturation has conceptual and historical roots in my work with Carl Rogers, as a staff member of the Person-Centered Approach Project. It is a person-specific process of psychospiritual development that can be mentored in communities where belief systems and cultural identities are diverse. It enables individuals to deepen engagement with contemplative practices from spiritual traditions that hold personal salience, while building inclusive, respectful communities. This multidimensional model emerges from three decades mentoring person-centered spiritual maturation with university students in the service of their growth as professionals and socially responsible citizens. Growth includes (a) behavioral self-regulation through mindfulness; (b) cognitive understanding of humanity’s chain of pain that supports social justice; (c) social–emotional development that repairs broken attachment templates and promotes compassionate attunement to self and others; (d) contemplative practice that strengthens secure existential attachment and taps the human capacity for unconditional altruistic love; and (e) formation of a resilient worldview, confidence in life and self, that helps people confront life’s existential, interpersonal, and intergroup tensions with sufficient internal composure to derive maturational growth. This model provides a cohesive multidimensional explanation of person-centered spiritual maturation that highlights its prosocial value, integrates relevant neuroscience, and offers researchers a conceptual framework for future investigations.
There is a true yearning to respond to The singing River and the wise Rock. So say the Asian, the Hispanic, the Jew, The African, the Native American, the Sioux, The Catholic, the Muslim, the French, the Greek, The Irish, the Rabbi, the Priest, the Sheik, The Gay, the Straight, the Preacher, The privileged, the homeless, the Teacher. In his novel Ulysses, James Joyce described history as a nightmare from which we are trying to awake (Joyce, 1914, 1961). Each of us knows what he meant. Human culture is ensnared in a vast, traumatic, trans-generational chain of pain (Kass, 2008). This nightmare is so pervasive, and so profound, that we often doubt the goodness and sanctity of human nature. How can it be—during every historical period, in every major culture—that corrupt elites, patriarchy, racism, greed, and the will to dominate through violence, have played such a chilling role in human civilization…unless humanity—and perhaps life, itself—are marred by vast imperfections that call into question the existence of a transcendent God? What justification do we have, during such troubled times, to speak about a subject as seemingly naïve and abstract as spirituality? 1 Portions of this paper were presented as the keynote address at the conference: Body, Mind, and Spirit: Innovations in Research, Practice, and Pedagogy. Lesley University, March, 30, 2007.
Presents a logotherapeutic approach that can be used by clinical teams to help medical patients develop psychological resources for coping with life-threatening illnesses. Such interventions include 2 complimentary stages. In Stage 1, primary health care teams build positive emotional alliances with patients through assessment of the psychospiritual crisis that accompanies a life-threatening illness. In Stage 2, counselors help patients complete the development of positive coping responses by systematically addressing 3 central components of these crises: (1) loss of meaning; (2) loss of empowerment; and (3) need for an experienced connection with the transcendent element, the Spirit of Life. A case study of a male in his mid-50's recovering from a myocardial infarction is presented that illustrates ways that counselors can help address these issues by combining a logotherapeutic approach with clinical methods utilized in behavioral medicine. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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