Personal Development and Spiritual Practice: Narrative Analysis of Experiences

Abstract

The goal of this study is to study thoroughly in the lived spiritual experience, and to contribute to the understanding of the effects that the spiritual practice brings forth. Specifically, the study addressed the analysis of two spiritual practices from the Christian tradition. The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius of Loyola –an intensive month-long practice– and the Contemplative Retreat of the Jesuit Franz Jalics. The method employed a detailed narrative analysis of the first person accounts of ten participants in the mentioned spiritual practices. The findings were presented in the form of conceptual map and in macro-categories of the meaning of the experience. The analysis brought up the emergence of a nuclear concept that we called Spiritual Sensitivity, and to which we proposed a definition based on the categories previously found. As a conclusion, we point to the emergence of a contemplative psychology, focused on the spiritual and contemplative dimension of the human being and on the processes that facilitate this dimension.