Browsing by Author "Rich, Marcia"

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    Spirituality and counselling
    (1994) Rich, Marcia; Guzie, Tad W.
    A phenomenological hermeneutics research format was used to understand how spirituality relates to counselling. In embracing this research approach it was important to consider the historical forces that initially dismissed the spiritual dimension in our interpretation of the human experience and then shaped its coming to the fore as an emergent and significant issue in the field of psychology. Four counsellors who work from a transpersonal perspective were interviewed for their account of how spirituality comes to life within the counselling process. In the research process they participated as co-researchers in a shared journey of discovery about the subject of concern. Eleven themes about spirituality and counselling emerged from the co-researchers' narratives. The implications of these themes for counselling theory, practise, and research were considered, particularly in light of the need to incorporate a spiritual or transpersonal perspective into the theories and training programs that guide counsellors' practise. The significance of the phenomenological hermeneutic perspective as an orientation for exploring spirituality was highlighted because of an observed similarity between this research orientation and a spiritual orientation.
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    Women's transformation in nothingness: a feminist-existential-transpersonal interpretive account of women's transformative experience of existential crisis
    (2004) Rich, Marcia; Hughson, E. Anne
    'What is women's experience in Nothingness as a transformational experience?' The study of this question, through conducting interviews of five women's accounts of their lived-experience in Nothingness, resulted in an interpretive analysis of women's transformative experience of existential crisis. This study included an initial analysis of the research question to reveal what may influence our understanding of women's transformational experience in Nothingness. Thus, areas of knowledge relating to Nothingness, women and transformation were explored, including Western existential philosophy and psychology, women's psychology, and transpersonal psychology. The research topic required a methodology that would help the researcher remain sensitive to a phenomenon that was not definitive, but transformative, in nature. Thus, a research approach embracing methodological pluralism was utilized by blending together feminist, existential, and transpersonal epistemologies to yield a feminist-phenomenological- integral hermeneutics framework for research. Using this framework, research interviews produced narratives of the lived-experience of Nothingness in the lives of ordinary women. By analyzing and interpreting the deep meanings embedded within the narratives, ten themes emerged in response to the research question. The themes were: 1) early developmental experiences of Nothingness as the devalued female self, 2) disconnecting from the deep self and embracing socio-cultural scripts, 3) existential crisis and the descent into Nothingness, 4) women's ways of coping with the pain of Nothingness, 5) experiences of awakening, 6) spiritual searching and revaluing of the feminine, 7) breaking through: experiencing the mystical fullness of Nothingness, 8) cutting ties: hanging alone, 9) the never-ending process, and 10) the difficulty of ineffability and the need for mentoring.