Spiritual Direction Dissertations

Cole, Susan. “Meeting God at the Crossroads: Spiritual Direction in the Parish.” PhD diss., Lutheran Theological Seminary/Chestnut Hill College, 2005.

            Brief executive summary of topic:

            To be added.

Graham, Virginia Bunnell. “Sandwerk as an Individual Spiritual Practice.” PhD diss., Pacifica Graduate Institute, 2006.

Brief executive summary of topic:

Researched method of visual praying for people who are oriented to engaging with images.

Sandwerk as an Individual Spiritual Practice.

How can psychospiritual experiences result from a new form of sandplay, a method of applied Jungian psychology introduced by Kalff in 1980? Sandplay is a therapist-assisted use of miniatures in a sand tray, a nonrational, preverbal, sensate method for self-exploration and healing.

This dissertation explores and documents the phenomenon of an individual’s creating three intentional sand trays in solitude and reflecting on them. I have coined a new term, sandwerk, describing a way one can practice this adaptation of sandplay for personal growth.

Sandwerk offers a process for recognizing and assimilating some contents of the unconscious. One provides one’s own free, protected space for creativity and relating to imaginal figures, and explores symbols that personify archetypal patterns of energy. This experience, as a transformative practice, offers the potential to integrate the unconscious into waking life and develop a stronger personality during the second half of life.

Art therapy, drawing mandalas, and dreamwork employ similar visual projective techniques.

This dissertation uses phenomenological research methodology by gathering data from a small sample of six therapists and spiritual directors, aged 49-70. Each co-researcher focused on a subjective question and created three sand trays within one week. They discussed their individual introductory rituals and experiences of the process. I distilled the interviews after making my own sandwerks.

Some results of the study were unexpected. Participants expressed a range of feelings: surprise, fear, love, despair, wholeness, and fascination. They reported discovering meaning, respect, awe for the process, and further questions. On various levels, co-researchers were able to contain conflict assisted by experiencing the images. They extended their insights and transformed, incorporating contents of the unconscious. Their relationships with imaginal figures deepened their sense of the symbolic, and mediated inner and outer life.

This research finds that sandwerk--an individual practice for personal development that is intentional, serial, imaginal, and relational--offers a method, a process, and a potential for integrating unconscious dynamics into awareness. It facilitates individuation, a Jungian term for becoming one’s authentic whole self in relationship to a transpersonal power. Moreover, sandwerk can liberate Jung’s depth psychology and Kalff’s sandplay from the consulting room.

Contact number for accessing a copy: Mark Kelly, Head of Reference Services, Pacifica Graduate Institute, Carpinteria, CA  Phone: (805) 969-3626 x144

Hardy, Douglas S. “Redescribing Relationships in Christian Spiritual Direction Using Winnicott’s Psychoanalytic Object Relations Theory.” PhD diss, Boston University, 2000.

Brief executive summary of topic:

This dissertation in contemporary psychoanalytic psychology and religion fulfills substantive and methodological objectives.  First, it offers a psychological interpretation of a religious practice by utilizing the object relations theory of Donald W. Winnicott to redescribe features of Christian spiritual direction.  It reveals how recent interpretations of spiritual direction appropriately emphasize the relationship between the directee and God, but mistakenly undervalue the dynamics of the relationship between the directee and the spiritual director.  Second, this dissertation outlines an alternative method.  Research in psychology of religion customarily proceeds by explaining "without remainder" religious matters in psychological terms.  In contrast, this psychoanalytic interpretation is carried out in three deliberate steps:  observing resemblances between religious and psychological ideas and practices; critically examining these resemblances; and provisionally redescribing features of the religious practice psychologically.  Resemblances among descriptions of the relationships between directee, director, and God in the spiritual direction literature and of the relationships between patient and analyst, and infant and mother in Winnicott's psychoanalytic writings are identified.  Each of these relationships seeks to facilitate development of increasingly mature forms of relating with others and increasingly rich and varied forms of experiencing.  Critically examining these apparent resemblances reveals significant differences.  In the spiritual direction literature, the Other with whom the director seeks to enhance relating and experiencing is Divine; the person of and relationship with the director are important only to the degree to which they focus primary if not sole attention on the Other who is Divine.  In the psychoanalytic literature, the others with whom the analyst seeks to enhance relating and experiencing are human; the person of and relationship with the analyst (and the mother) are significant in and of themselves.  Critically examining resemblances gives rise to a way of characterizing Christian spiritual direction as unfolding in what Winnicott called "transitional space" and "potential space."  Directors are encouraged to be particularly attentive to each directee's unique, unfolding developmental needs, to facilitate ongoing transitions, and to nurture various forms of experiencing as they emerge in the process of direction.

Contact telephone number for accessing a copy of dissertation:          

816-268-5458       

Truscott, Stephen. “A Study of the Developmental Influences that Shape the Contemporary Practice of Beginning and Advanced Spiritual Directors.” PhD diss., Murdoch University, 2007.

Brief executive summary of topic:

This study explores the similar and different developmental influences that shape the practice of beginning and advanced spiritual directors. An examination of the contemporary literature on spiritual direction finds that in the main, two developmental influences shape the practice of contemporary spiritual directors: their capacity to adopt a contemplative stance towards their directees and their ability to be aware contextually of the factors that fashion the dynamic of accompaniment. While the review highlights the presence of these two influences, the literature is deficient in understanding the similarities and differences in how these two influences shape the practice of beginning and advanced spiritual directors. To address the deficiency, this study reviews three groups of Western Australian spiritual directors, Anglican, Churches of Christ, and Roman Catholic. The investigation takes a qualitative, ethnographic approach, using focus groups. An analysis and discussion of the data confirms that the similarities and differences in the influences that shape their practice revolve around two key developmental influences namely, the capacity of directors to adopt a contemplative stance to their directees, and their ability to be aware contextually of the factors that fashion the dynamic of accompaniment. While both influences shape beginning and advanced directors, the former impacts more on the practice of beginning directors and the latter more affects advanced directors. Two factors may initiate and sustain the capacity of directors to adopt a contemplative stance. First, directors grow by noticing and attending to all the dimensions of their human experience. Second, directors develop by having their experience attended to in some form of therapeutic relationship or through participation in various developmental group processes.
 
Directors may enhance their capacity to be aware contextually of the factors that fashion the dynamic of accompaniment through understanding paradigms about spiritual direction practice and spiritual development. Their appreciation of paradigms about spiritual direction may derive from two sources. The first is by how they distinguish more effectively spiritual direction from other therapeutic practices. The second is by how they grow in understanding relevant theological, philosophical, and psychological perspectives that inform good practice. Directors may further increase their comprehension of interpretive frameworks about spiritual development by redressing the attitudinal effects of fundamentalism and incorporating a multiplicity of approaches to spirituality. Training programmes are an important means to introduce and develop directors’ abilities to be aware contextually of the factors that fashion the dynamic of accompaniment. A person’s ecclesial role may influence the context in which a director commences practice. From this discussion, this study draws conclusions and offers recommendations applicable to practice and research.

An electronic copy of thesis is available at:  

Vooght, C.E. “Living Playful Inquiry.” Doctoral thesis, The University of the West of England, 2007.

            Brief executive summary of topic:

The thesis represents a process of playing with living inquiry, or methodological bricolage, to ‘Understand more about playfulness as an adult learner’. The process included improvising with contemplative, intuitive and reflexive practices, writing as inquiry, heuristic and transpersonal research, autoethnography, a/r/tography, conversation, and participatory inquiry. 

The thesis is crafted into four parts: Introducing, Inquiring, Improvising, and Reflecting. The Improvising section presents my theory of emergent forms of playfulness: participative, contemplative, reflexive, imaginative, narrative, creative, and transformative, and takes the form of seven improvisations, each of which is fronted with a collage: a visual metaphor for the deconstructing and reconstructing aspects of postmodern and poststructural research; for the ‘whole being more than the sum of its parts’, a key concept in ‘new’ science; and as an example of a/r/tography (the process of writing about being an artist/researcher/teacher).

The thesis reflects on different forms of playful workshop spaces designed by the writer, and is offered as a contribution to a conversation about living; to the development of bricolage; as a proposed playful living inquiry methodology; as a theory of emergent playfulness and as an example of personal life long learning. It seeks to stimulate reflection and learning, and to open spaces for individual interpretation.

            Contact telephone number for accessing a copy of dissertation:

            Not provided.

Wilhelm, Susan. “Kenosis as a Paradigm for the On-going Transformational Journey of Spiritual Mentors.” Diss., Graduate Theological Foundation, 2008.

Brief executive summary of topic:

The death and resurrection of Jesus is the heart of the Christian life. Kenosis, the self emptying process, is the heart of this Paschal Mystery, and the paradigm for the on-going transformational journey of Mentors of Associate Spiritual Directors.

Through Christ's self-emptying unto death, we are shown the model of self-giving that creates space for New Life and the receiving of the Holy Spirit.  This is the task of spiritual direction: the opening of an individual's interior life to accept and live into a deeper intimacy with God under the direction of the Holy Spirit.  A spiritual mentor of a beginning or novice spiritual director, then, models the self-emptying necessary to provide space for the action of God.  The question then might be: what on-going spiritual formation opportunities and experiences might assist the spiritual mentor in growing in their capacity for self-giving? 

This project has a four-fold purpose.  The first is to provide a theological context of kenosis.  This will be done through an exploration of the meaning of kenosis in terms of Christ's self-emptying, through a brief study of Philippians 2: 6-8, and Karl Rahner's theological reflection on God's self-bestowal in Jesus.  The second is to learn how these spiritual giants: Ignatius Loyola and John of the cross viewed self-emptying as essential to union with God and an integral part of the transformational journey. The third is to consider contemporary views of Gerald May and Albert Nolan, a Dominican, on self-emptying as ego-relinquishment.   And finally to apply insights from these gleanings to opportunities and experiences that might aid the inner work of kenosis in the spiritual mentor's transformational journey.

The context of this project is the Spiritual Formation Program developed by Sr. Nancy Brousseau at the Dominican Center at Marywood, and specifically the work done with the spiritual mentors who accompany the associates in the Spiritual Direction Practicum.

Contact telephone number for accessing a copy of dissertation: 260-530-6307

Yue, Paula J. “Spiritual Mind Treatment (Affirmative Prayer) and the Evolution of Consciousness as Revealed in Instances of Healing in Master Practitioners of Religious Science.” PhD diss., Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, 1995.

Brief executive summary of topic:

This multiple case study explored the evolution of consciousness in 11 Master Practitioners of Religious Science using Spiritual Mind Treatment (affirmative prayer). Religious Science Practitioners and ordained Ministers are trained prayers using Spiritual Mind Treatment (Treatment) for themselves and others. The participants were chosen by the researcher and given the title of Master Practitioner (one known by the "fruits" they bear, i.e., healing demonstrations). In a semi-structured interview, 5 Practitioners and 6 Ministers - women (7), men (4), Caucasians (8), African Americans (2) and Jamaican (1) ranging from 43-85 years in age-shared 4 instances of healing (a revealing of wholeness) as defined by Religious Science. The self-perceived healings were either for themselves or another in health, finances, or relationship; 2 healings were from the early period when the participant first became licensed or ordained, and 2 healings were more recent. The time span of healings was 5 to 35 years. The findings indicate that Treatment is a model for the evolution of consciousness. The 5 steps of Treatment (a)~Recognition (God is all there is), (b)~Unification (God as me), (c)~Realization (God as the thing I desire), (d)~Thanksgiving/Acceptance, and (e)~Release-when used consistently opens one to a greater awareness of the Divine within and without and is used in service for others. The findings indicate the healings are movements in consciousness from doubt to greater faith, from being focused on tangible demonstrations to more of a relationship to the Divine. They also show healing issues of worthiness, and setting the human personality aside allows one to be open to receive God's love, God's graciousness and God's givingness and to the degree the Master Practitioner is in victim consciousness and in judgment, to that degree they have not embodied the 5 steps of Treatment

Contact telephone number for accessing a copy of dissertation: I would recommend library to library loan (check with your university library-this would be the least expensive way to obtain a copy).  Telephone number: 650-493-4430