This article discusses the process of changes to a patient’s personality organization and God image in the course of long-term psychodynamically oriented psychotherapy. The patient remained a declared atheist, and so these changes did not involve his general views; rather, they only concerned his manner of experiencing his own and others’ faith. The patient’s personality organization and God image were examined twice: at the beginning of psychotherapy and after two years of contact. Those assessments used the personality organization diagnostic form and Ana-Maria Rizzuto’s God/Family Questionnaire. The process of changes in the God image and changes in approach to religious life is considered from the point of view of modern psychoanalysis, and especially from the perspective of object relations theories. Tis article addresses the maturity of different religious declarations and the relation to mental health from both a Freudian and a more modern psychoanalytical perspective.
The Questionnaire of Religious Insights (QRI) presented in this paper was constructed to challenge the current model of religious orientations, especially the Quest Scale, by providing insight into different kinds of motivation that can influence spiritual seeking. The QRI contains two scales: Doubt (D) and Quest (Q). Validation of the internal reliability of the QRI and external criteria analysis was examined within an exploratory study conducted in a group recruited under a research grant. The second was conducted on a group of 117 young Polish adults. The study pro[1]vided evidence for the internal reliability of QRI and its criterion validity using Religious Orienta[1]tion Scales. The results of the second study suggest that most of the external validity criteria have been met. In conclusion, the proposed model of exploring motivation factors that may influence religious questing is a topic worth pursuing. We present studies that can follow this exploratory study that can be undertaken on more extensive and diverse age samples.
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