A Sense of Something Else for Me: Search for Meaning in Life and Transcendence in Spouses of People with Mental Illness
-
Jonna M. P. Ojalammi
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.
Zusammenfassung
Dieser Aufsatz untersucht den Zusammenhang zwischen Transzendenz und Lebenssinn in den Erzählungen der Ehe- und Lebenspartner von Menschen mit psychischen Erkrankungen. Die Autorin befragte 16 finnische Ehepartner in narrativen, halbstrukturierten Interviews. Die Befragten nahmen psychische Erkrankungen als Sinnbedrohung wahr und bezogen Transzendenz bei der Suche nach Sinn auf Hoffnung, Humor, Wünschen und Vorstellungskraft. Die Suche nach Sinn und Transzendenz erwiesen sich als miteinander verbunden durch das fragile Gefühl, dass es „für mich etwas anderes“ gibt, wodurch Distanz zur Krankheitsrealität des Ehepartners hergestellt wird. Implikationen für die Pastoraltheologie sind vor allem in der Hoffnung zu finden.
© 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Editorial
- Vorwort – u. a. aus Anlass des 25-jährigen Bestehens dieser Zeitschrift
- Remarks and Reflections on the 25th Anniversary of the IJPT
- Research Articles
- Poetic Listening in Pastoral Care: Listening to the Poems that People Are
- A Sense of Something Else for Me: Search for Meaning in Life and Transcendence in Spouses of People with Mental Illness
- Generalized Surrogacy and the COVID Crisis
- The Process of Leaving the Church Revisited. A Replication of Ebertz’ Study on Types of Church Leavers
- Coloring Things Together: Experiences of Leading Together as Pastor Couples in the Norwegian Pentecostal Movement
- Segmented Secrecy as Catholic Ecclesial Practice: The Case of Gay Priests
- RICE 2020: Exploring the Inclusivity of European Churches towards LGBTI People
- Research Report
- International Cooperative Research: Experiences and Insights from the Project on Confirmation Work in Europe
- Book Reviews
- Philipp Öhlmann, Wilhelm Gräb, Marie-Luise Frost. African Initiated Christianity and the Decolonisation of Development: Sustainable Development in Pentecostal and Independent Churches, Abingdon (Routledge) 2020, 354 pp., ISBN 9780367358686, £120.
- Christoph Krummacher, Kirchenmusik (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2020), ISBN 978-3-159365-9, € 39,00
- Andreas Kubik, Theologische Kulturhermeneutik impliziter Religion. Ein praktisch-theologisches Paradigma der Spätmoderne, Berlin / Boston (Walter de Gruyter), 2018, 405 S., ISBN 978-3-11-057612-2, € 99,95 (Praktische Theologie im Wissenschaftsdiskurs 23).
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Editorial
- Vorwort – u. a. aus Anlass des 25-jährigen Bestehens dieser Zeitschrift
- Remarks and Reflections on the 25th Anniversary of the IJPT
- Research Articles
- Poetic Listening in Pastoral Care: Listening to the Poems that People Are
- A Sense of Something Else for Me: Search for Meaning in Life and Transcendence in Spouses of People with Mental Illness
- Generalized Surrogacy and the COVID Crisis
- The Process of Leaving the Church Revisited. A Replication of Ebertz’ Study on Types of Church Leavers
- Coloring Things Together: Experiences of Leading Together as Pastor Couples in the Norwegian Pentecostal Movement
- Segmented Secrecy as Catholic Ecclesial Practice: The Case of Gay Priests
- RICE 2020: Exploring the Inclusivity of European Churches towards LGBTI People
- Research Report
- International Cooperative Research: Experiences and Insights from the Project on Confirmation Work in Europe
- Book Reviews
- Philipp Öhlmann, Wilhelm Gräb, Marie-Luise Frost. African Initiated Christianity and the Decolonisation of Development: Sustainable Development in Pentecostal and Independent Churches, Abingdon (Routledge) 2020, 354 pp., ISBN 9780367358686, £120.
- Christoph Krummacher, Kirchenmusik (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2020), ISBN 978-3-159365-9, € 39,00
- Andreas Kubik, Theologische Kulturhermeneutik impliziter Religion. Ein praktisch-theologisches Paradigma der Spätmoderne, Berlin / Boston (Walter de Gruyter), 2018, 405 S., ISBN 978-3-11-057612-2, € 99,95 (Praktische Theologie im Wissenschaftsdiskurs 23).
