Danish Pentecostals’ Spiritual Relationships in Group Psychotherapy: A Qualitative Follow-up Study

Background: Denmark has been named one of the most secularized countries in the world, and studies have found that Danes in general have fewer spiritual resources, articulation, and conceptu-alisation than less secularized societies. Studies have particularly highlighted the private character of spirituality among Danes, where the social support they receive from fellow believers is limited. However, studies have also found that Danes intensify their spiritual thoughts and needs when fac-ing a crisis.
Most of these studies have been conducted among the broader Danish population, and there is a paucity of research among religious minority groups in Denmark. We were interested in how more distinct religious Danes express their spirituality when facing crisis.
Furthermore, studies have found that religious people often benefit from spiritually integrated ther-apy. However, most of these studies have an individual focus, and little in known about attending to people’s spirituality in a group setting.
Spiritually integrated group therapy with a focus on enhancing spiritual articulation, conceptualisa-tion, and support of fellow believers could expect to benefit Danes facing a crisis.
The aim of this study was to qualitative explore 18 clients’ individual experiences of spiritual rela-tionships in spiritually integrated group therapies for Pentecostals Danes (a religious minority group in Denmark) dealing with a personal crisis.
The method of the study was based on qualitative research. The study combined participant obser-vations, sound recordings of group sessions, and semi-structured interviews with eighteen partici-pants 2 weeks after the group therapies had ended in 2009 and with thirteen participants in 2018. The study applied the method of interpretative phenomenological analysis for analysing data, and NVIVO for handling data.
Three themes emerged: 1) Relationship with God, 2) Relationship with therapist, and 3) Relation-ship with group members.
The themes were theoretically analysed applying the notion of sacred moments (Pargament) and the notion of the sacred room (Martinsen and Løgstrup).
Findings: Participants reported experiencing close relationships with God but being private about these. Participants’ relationship with therapist and group members functioned as a sacred room for developing spiritual articulation and conceptualisation. Participants reported on several sacred mo-ments in the group sessions with both therapist and other group members, and the participants would attribute sacred qualities to these moments. They also attributed sacred qualities to the thera-pist but not to other group members. In the interviews nine years later, eleven of the thirteen inter-viewed participants would still attribute sacred qualities to these moments. However, despite all participants emphasizing importance of relationship with fellow believers, the thirteen interviewed participants would prefer individual therapy instead of group therapy.