Abstract
This chapter considers developing spiritual identity in a sample of 45 Muslim, Jewish, and Christian individuals nominated by religious tradition for outstanding maturity. We suggest that developing spiritual identity is amenable to naturalistic study through a heuristic known as psychological realism. Study findings are presented from qualitative coding of retrospective exemplar interviews on identity precepts of redemption, agency, and communion. These findings are supplemented with grounded theory analysis to specify themes related to developmental process in spiritual identity. From this work, we propose that spiritual identity is developmentally understood as commitment consistent with a sense of self to interpersonal behaviors of transcendent, goal-corrected character emphasizing purpose, generativity, and social responsibility.
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Reimer, K.S., Dueck, A.C., Adelchanow, L.V., Muto, J.D. (2009). Developing Spiritual Identity: Retrospective Accounts From Muslim, Jewish, and Christian Exemplars. In: de Souza, M., Francis, L.J., O’Higgins-Norman, J., Scott, D. (eds) International Handbook of Education for Spirituality, Care and Wellbeing. International Handbooks of Religion and Education, vol 3. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9018-9_28
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9018-9_28
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