Healing the Invisible Wound: Examining Spirituality in the Posttraumatic Growth of Sexual Trauma Survivors.

摘要

Spirituality has been essential in assisting female childhood sexual abuse (CSA) survivors in resolving their abuse through meaning-making processes. Research indicates that spirituality has been influential in the achievement of posttraumatic growth (PTG) for some survivors. However, it is not clear how spirituality works and how it contributes to PTG for female sexual abuse survivors. The purpose of this hermenetic phenomenologial study was to gain understanding of how and why spirituality is helpful for some female CSA survivors and not others, and to gain knowledge about how spirituality is experienced as a key-contributing factor of PTG. Using spirituality-related operationally defined teens as a guide and the Being Delivered spirituality framework, the experience of spirituality was explored. The PTG Inventory was used as a tool to examine how spirituality was experienced as a key-contributing factor in PTG. Eight female CSA survivors (ages 30-70) in the Southwestern region of the United States participated in 30 days of daily prayer/meditation, journaling, and weekly focus group attendance (for 4 weeks). At the 30-day point, participants completed the PTGI and partcipated in an unstructured interview of their experience. Participants experience of spirituality yielded 11 themes. Six of the 11 themes aligned with the Being Delivered spirituality framework dimensions. All participants experienced spirituality-influenced PTG. Twenty-five percent experienced most spirituality-related growth in the PTGI-factor 1-domain of Connection with Others, 25% experienced most growth in factor-3-Personal Strength, 12.5 % experienced growth in factor 5-Appreciation of Life, and 37.5% most growth in factor 4-Spiritual Change. Contributions to the field include a better understanding of the areas of one's life in which spirituality contributes to PTG. Recommendations for future research include suggestions to conduct research on PTG and male participants and repetition of the current study using a larger sample size and using a longitudinal study design to understand how life events affect spirituality and growth over time.