title: The helpfulness of spiritually influenced group work in developing self-awareness and self-esteem: a preliminary investigation.
abstract: This paper discusses an exploratory study that investigated the helpfulness of spiritually influenced group work with eight adult women who shared a history of substance abuse. The overall purpose of the group was to help participants develop their self-awareness and self-esteem. The group, which was contextualized in transpersonal theory, was organized around the following themes and experiential exercises: meditation, mindfulness practice, dream work, stream of consciousness writing, the shadow self, and other arts-based processes. Grounded-theory analysis of group sessions and individual interviews with the participants found that the participants perceived the group to be helpful in developing their self-awareness and self-esteem. While the participants identified different aspects of the group as spiritual, making-meaning was one practice that was consistently described as a spiritually sensitive process. The results of this study in this emergent field are promising and suggestions are provided for future research.
authors.affiliation: Laurentian University School of Social Work, Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. dcoholic@laurentian.ca
authors.forename: Diana
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Coholic
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003243:Consciousness; D004325:Dreams; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D019122:Meditation; D008875:Middle Aged; D010865:Pilot Projects; D011615:Psychotherapy, Group / Q000379:methods*; D012649:Self Concept; D026443:Spiritual Therapies / Q000379:methods*; D029181:Spirituality; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders / Q000523:psychology / Q000534:rehabilitation*