<p>This thesis studied the relationship professional American Sign Language (ASL) interpreters have with their lived experience of work, specifically examining how it connects to meaning, purpose, and calling. Currently in the United States of America, there are over 63,000 interpreters, many of whom interpret between spoken and visual languages, such as English and ASL. Interpreters throughout the United States work with many diverse people in various locations, such as medical, mental health, legal, education, and business venues. Although the ASL interpreting profession has considered interpreting paradigms, skill development, and professionalism, there are few, if any, studies that have focused on the lived experience of the working interpreter as it relates to meaningfulness, purpose in life, and calling. </p><p> This qualitative study was philosophically informed by the transcendental phenomenological method. Two ASL interpreters volunteered to respond to 6 questions using a spiritual guidance framework to structure the interviews. Spiritual guidance is a formal process of listening deeply and authentically, which creates a space for a deepening of transformational processes within the individual. The general questions that were explored were (a) how does interpreting fulfill a sense of meaning, purpose, and calling; (b) how does meaning, purpose, and calling inform connections between self and work; (c) do interpreters sense their work serves a larger purpose; and (d) how might spiritual guidance play a role in the process. The results of this study suggested that the participant interpreters have deeply meaningful work experiences and that spiritual guidance can be a lens in which to view and cultivate this relationship. </p>

<p> Ancestor reverence, in this study, is considered to consist of reflecting on and honoring the women and men who came before us in our bloodlines, including those friends and chosen family who were part of our intellectual or spiritual lineages. Many traditions include beliefs that our consciousness continues after death, and some traditions hold that ancestors may influence the events of the living or intercede with the gods on the living's behalf. In many traditions ancestors are honored through altar building, rituals, and trance journeys. Rituals performed for the ancestors create strong familial and community bonds. This thesis work is important because it expanded the opportunities for me to understand my family dynamics and to develop relationships with my deceased foremothers and forefathers. I learned about myself in understanding my families' past and felt stronger connections to my lineage and progeny. The literature revealed that genealogy research is a form of ancestor reverence; especially in Western cultures that no longer have formalized ancestor reverence rituals and practices. Through genealogy research, I learned the names and stories of my ancestors and ancestresses and, in combination with that research, on a pilgrimage to my ancestral homeland, I explored my matriline using an archaeomythological and feminist lens that combined archaeology, anthropology, mythology, folklore, genetics, ecology, and history to search for the evidence of what women did throughout herstory. I gathered the stories focused on how women worked, lived and contributed to society throughout history, because the stories of my ancestresses, like the accomplishments of most women from 1500-1900, were often omitted from written history. A sacred journey can catapult the participant into greater and faster spiritual growth; this was true for me in that I may not have gained this wisdom otherwise. In this paper I explored the idea that ancestors were revered through multiple methods, including pilgrimage and creative writing. While altar building, rituals, trance journeys, and genealogy were most often recorded in written form in regards to ancestor reverence, they are not the only methods that can provide experience and impact to the descendant who honors their ancestors. I have tried to prove this assertion through academic research: I used a heuristic approach to carefully examine my personal experiences with each of these forms of ancestor reverence and an arts-based approach through creative writing to pen short works about my ancestors.</p>

<p> This theoretical study addresses the question of how spirituality affects a child's development of a sense of self and considers the role of the natural world in this process. The author uses a traditional hermeneutic method in combination with alchemical hermeneutics (Romanyshyn, 2007) in order to make room for the unconscious during the research process. The study is therefore both an examination of the interrelationships between self, spirituality, and the natural world, as well as a depiction of the author's use of self and the unconscious to penetrate the deeper dimensions of these interrelationships. Three main bodies of literature were reviewed for the study: children's spirituality, sense of self development, and the human-nature connection. In addition, the author made use of a logbook for the duration of the study to record dreams, symptoms, reveries, synchronicities, and the transference dialogues. These contributions from the unconscious were integrated with findings from the literature to articulate a new theoretical perspective on the child's development of a sense of self. The author finds that the spiritual life of the child is nurtured in communion with the natural world and that the child's sense of self is directly impacted by both the relationship with the natural world and her spiritual nature. Further, the author finds that the child's development of a spiritual sense of self in relationship with the natural world contributes to the reparation of the dissociation between human beings and the earth. The implications of this study for depth psychotherapy suggest that it is in our utmost interest to allow children opportunity to develop a sense of spiritual self in relationship with the earth. Both children and adults need opportunities to connect with the natural world in order for the spiritual self to emerge in the direction of human-earth unity. This study further implies that, in alchemical hermeneutics, depth psychology has an effective and reliable method of conducting research with the explicit participation of the unconscious in the research process.</p>

Sexual violence is an unfortunate everyday occurrence in South Africa. The rising statistics in relation to the rape of children and infants is a strong indication of the desperate need for the counselling mechanisms, counselling and ultimately the prevention in this field. The occurrence of sexual dysfunction in women that were molested as children is as a result very high and within marriages there is often a very high price to be paid. The research question that was applicable in this study is the following: What pastoral guidelines can be offered for the guidance of the molested woman, that is experiencing problems with sexual adjustment within her marriage, to guide her towards a normal sexual relationship within the marriage. The following research procedures were followed in order to answer this question: Chapter 2 investigates the basic concepts of the self esteem of the molested as well as God's plan concerning sexuality and body image. Excerpts of a number of relevant Scriptures were made and the appropriate principles identified. Chapter 3 covers a number of valuable contributions made by some of the supportive sciences in this field of study. A historical overview of the manner in which the church handles the molested woman gives valuable insight. There is a focus placed upon the emotional and physical characteristics of the so-called rape syndrome, typical defence mechanisms and reactions of the victim, aggression, self esteem as well as the body image of the molested person. An in depth look is taken at the emotional and physical characteristics of the so-called rape syndrome, covering issues such as aggression. Chapter 4 is an empirical investigation based on an extensive questionnaire and interviews with a number of respondents. The content of the questions was particularly concentrated on the role of the church, when the molestation took place, memories and/or memory lapses regarding the molestation, functioning within the marriage, sexual dysfunction, where help was sought and found as well as the person's experience of God. From the responses it was deduced that there is much room for improvement in the counselling that the Church offers to the molested iv woman or child. From the information in the preceding chapters certain practice theoretical guidelines, which can be applied when counselling the molested woman or child, could be formulated in Chapter 5. These guidelines can be very useful when counselling the individual as well as when counselling a married couple. In this regard much emphasis is placed on aspects such as guilt, forgiveness, the healing process as well as the powerful medium of prayer as part of the therapeutic process. Inner healing of emotions and memories was also identified as absolutely crucial for such a person to ultimately achieve sexual wellbeing and normal functionality within her marriage / Thesis (M.A. (Pastoral))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2005.

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Germany's Weimar republic has been understood as a time in which gays and lesbians asserted their demands for social tolerance and protection under the law. Many historians of this period have so far treated the complicated relationship between sex and gender variance and the scientific community. Yet the creation of the "homosexual" in the late nineteenth century as a kind of person also opened up the possibility for the discussion of a specifically sex variant soul. At the same time, the relative freedom of expression that occurred during Germany's Weimar period allowed for sex and gender variants to engage with existing ideas to articulate their own formulations. One journal, Die Freundschaft was a mouthpiece for a particularly vast array of opinions regarding same-sex love. Influenced by the works of Plato, as well as German romanticism, Die Freundschaft's authors saw their desires as being guided by Eros, a non-human and sacred force. Moreover, they fused Magnus Hirschfeld's notion of a "third sex" with the theosophical principle of reincarnation, arguing that part of the karmic path was the eventual incarnation of a soul into a body of opposing gender. Finally, the sentiment commonly espoused during Weimar Germany, that one could discover one's soul in nature, made nature a place in which sex and gender variants could discover their unique souls, and come to terms with their desires. Examining the ways in which sex and gender variants chose to describe themselves and their experiences in the language of the sacred reveals the extent to which they were able put forward an articulation of same-sex love that subverted scientific prescription, describing a constellation of desires and embodiments that were hallowed as well as natural.

<p> This study of children's dreams used a mixed method to examine the dreams of 32 English-speaking children, ages 6-12 from the San Francisco Bay Area. The primary purpose of this research was to investigate dreams identified by the children as significant or meaningful, explore children's interpretations and meaning making, and to find if there was support for the hypothesis that some dreams might be connected to children's spiritual awareness, or influenced by their spirituality, beliefs, and practices, areas that have had little attention in previous dream research. Using a semi-structured interview protocol, participants were asked to tell the dream while drawing a picture of the dream. Major dream themes were identified, and the resulting dream data were correlated to participants' spiritual awareness, as measured by the Feeling Good, Living Life instrument (FGLL), specifically designed to measure spiritual health in children, and the Practice and Beliefs Scale for Children (PBSC) a 10-item instrument designed to assess connections between spirituality and religiosity. The FGLL was developed to measure four domains of spiritual well-being: Personal, Communal, Environmental, and Transcendental. The PBSC used a sentence-completion format to reflect the individual's language and assessed children's belief in the God of their definition as well as the importance and the role of the child's spiritual beliefs in coping in everyday life. Findings from the qualitative and quantitative results showed evidence of children's spiritual awareness in all domains, reflected their spirituality in the areas of awareness-sensing, value-sensing, and mystery-sensing, and found correlations between some of the dreams, meaning making, and their spiritual understanding. Implications are noted for therapists, spiritual directors, researchers, parents, and other adults who work with children regarding the benefits and challenges of dream work with children in this age group as a way of recognizing and nurturing their spirituality.</p>

<p>Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Disorder of Extreme Stress Not Otherwise Specified (DESNOS) are physiological and psychological symptoms known to arise in the aftermath of trauma. Although lifetime prevalence of trauma capable of resulting in PTSD is 50-90%, lifetime prevalence of PTSD is eight percent, indicating that there may be factors that protect against the development of such symptoms. Spirituality has been implicated as a possible moderator; spirituality may play a protective or restorative role in lessening the relationship between trauma exposure and trauma symptoms. The purpose of this quantitative research was to examine the moderating role of different aspects of spirituality, including cognitive orientation to spirituality, the experiential/phenomenological dimensions of spirituality, and religiousness, on the relationship between trauma exposure and trauma symptoms when such symptoms are defined to include both PTSD and DESNOS. Data collected from members of the general adult population using a cross-sectional online survey design indicated that the cognitive orientation to spirituality and the experiential/phenomenological dimension of spirituality both significantly moderated the relationship between trauma exposure and DESNOS symptoms; both of these aspects of spirituality buffer the strength of the relationship between trauma exposure and DESNOS symptoms. Religiousness was not found to moderate the relationship between trauma exposure and DESNOS, and none of the aspects of spirituality moderated the relationship between trauma exposure and PTSD. These findings add to what is currently known about the protective role of spirituality, provide additional data on the differences between PTSD and DESNOS symptoms, and set the stage for further research. </p>

<p> This study attempts to show a relationship between being spiritual and choosing a college major. Using one public research institution, this quantitative, longitudinal study used secondary data from the Cooperative Institutional Research Program from the years 2000-2011. The survey included items that asked students about their spiritual preference, their confidence in choosing a major, philosophy of life, and participation in community service. Results indicated direct effects from choosing a major and being involved in community service. The study also showed direct effects of choosing a major and developing a meaningful philosophy of life. The strongest finding in this study was the gap in students changing their major (90% of college students from this institution say that they will change their major).</p>

Children with serious illnesses experience life disruptions that are of consequence to long-term health and development. The spiritual is integral to health, yet many healthcare providers claim a lack of understanding and comfort with attending to spiritual issues in practice. This hermeneutic phenomenological inquiry explores spirituality as lived by children with cancer and cystic fibrosis and highlights the importance of spirituality in the provision of holistic child healthcare. Four children aged nine to fourteen from each illness group (six males and two females) were interviewed and asked to draw pictures, forming the primary data for interpretation. Conversations with family members were also included in the analysis as supplements to the primary data. Study findings offer insights into children’s lived experiences of the spiritual. They reveal unmet spiritual needs and unique ways of living the spiritual that often went unrecognized by adults. The experiences shared were profound and deeply meaningful, revealing hidden wondering and wisdom that defies contemporary views of how children understand and deal with the complexity of living with serious illness. Findings provide more nuanced understandings of the spiritual that allow for the voices and emotions of children to be heard, revealing a sense of struggle and the need to find meaning in illness with all its disruptions and demands on time and freedom. Findings also reveal the meanings in relationships that sustained children in their efforts to live well with illness. These findings provide possibilities for viewing child health differently—a view that includes the spiritual and its implications—that can lead to a more conscious awareness, wisdom, and sensitivity in practice. Findings offer ways of engaging children in conversations about illness meanings and the spiritual that recognize the complexity in language and the need for alternate strategies to mine the depths of experiences that are often hidden. Because the spiritual does not always wait for experts to arrive, findings are relevant to all healthcare providers and caregivers of ill children. Implications for interprofessional research, education, and practice are also explored, providing possibilities for seeing, exploring, and living the spiritual in our practices of caring for ill children.