Christian Counsellors Felt Safest: Christians Coping With a Crisis of Faith. A Thematic Analysis

Abstract

This dissertation poses the question: ‘how do individuals identifying as Christian cope with a crisis of faith?’ Utilizing a thematic analysis methodology, five participants were interviewed using a semi-structured interviewing approach where three themes were revealed: Coping the best way we know how, a crisis of faith is distressing, and a crisis of faith involves change. Theme one represented a mainly positive approach to coping with a crisis of faith for participants and was supported by three subthemes which illustrated the different ways participants coped. They are coping with like-minded others, coping with God, and coping by myself. All participants used a combination of these sub-themes to cope with their crisis of faith and most participants preferred to use other Christians as a resource in coping. This includes a preference to see a Christian counsellor. This finding links in with two participants who wanted to know whether the researcher was a Christian. Theme two represented the distressing aspect of participants’ crisis of faith and was supported by two sub-themes of a) trauma and mental health issues and b) conflict of culture and values. All participants experienced trauma and/or mental health issues in some form and all participants experienced a conflict between their Christian beliefs when encountering other cultural and value systems. Theme three represents the inevitable change that follows a crisis of faith and how all participants’ faith had changed. This is reflected in the subthemes of changed view of faith and, for some participants was also tied to an identity crisis. The sub-theme of changed view of God reflected how participants' representations of God, transformed from negative to positive images, which is the only finding contrary to existing literature. A further subtheme emerged, under a changed view of faith, which was a gradual awakening moment. It represents how two participants found their crisis of faith to be a gradual process, rather than a one-off event. The implications for clinical practice of these three themes are discussed, including the value of addressing religion and a crisis of faith in therapy, understanding countertransference, being aware of the historical divide between religion and psychotherapy and religious client’s reservations when entering therapy.