{"title":"A Sense of Something Else for Me: Search for Meaning in Life and Transcendence in Spouses of People with Mental Illness","authors":"J. Ojalammi","doi":"10.1515/ijpt-2020-0029","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In this article, I investigate search for meaning in life and transcendence in spouses of people with mental illness. Research related to the topic is scant. I interviewed 16 Finnish spouses and partners in narrative, semi-structured interviews, and analyzed the data narratively. The interviewees perceived mental illness as a threat to meaning. In the search for meaning, transcendence referred to hope, humor, wishing, and imagining. The search for meaning and transcendence were connected through the fragile “sense of something else for me” as detachment from the spouse’s illness reality. Implications for pastoral theology can be found above all in Christian hope.","PeriodicalId":42892,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Practical Theology","volume":"26 1","pages":"39 - 56"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1000,"publicationDate":"2022-06-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"International Journal of Practical Theology","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1515/ijpt-2020-0029","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"RELIGION","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Abstract In this article, I investigate search for meaning in life and transcendence in spouses of people with mental illness. Research related to the topic is scant. I interviewed 16 Finnish spouses and partners in narrative, semi-structured interviews, and analyzed the data narratively. The interviewees perceived mental illness as a threat to meaning. In the search for meaning, transcendence referred to hope, humor, wishing, and imagining. The search for meaning and transcendence were connected through the fragile “sense of something else for me” as detachment from the spouse’s illness reality. Implications for pastoral theology can be found above all in Christian hope.
期刊介绍:
The International Journal of Practical Theology is an academic journal. It is intended for practical theologians and teachers of religious education, scientists specializing in religion, and representatives of other cultural-scientific disciplines. The aim of the journal is to promote an international and interdisciplinary dialogue. The journal contains contributions on an empirically descriptive and critically constructive theory of ecclesiastical and religious practice in society. Primarily, it deals with descriptions of religion as it is practised. Religion in this context can be understood in the broad sense of the word according to which all appreciative tendencies towards an ultimate view of oneself and of the world can be described as being religious.