Comparative influence of relationship with God and with significant other on self-understanding in Protestant Christians, and the relation to counselling practices with Christian clients

Poststructural models of psychotherapy such as narrative therapy propose concepts of self or selves that are a construction, formed in large part by relationship with others. Because people in the Christian community conceive of a “personal relationship” with God, this study sought to explore the contribution and nature of this human-Divine relationship to the notion of the relationally constructed self. A qualitative exploratory project was conceived and 20 people who identified as Protestant Christian were interviewed about the influence of their relationship with God on their construction of self. A second interview about relationship with a significant person in their life was conducted to provide a comparison. A narrative analysis, a descriptor analysis, and a metaphor analysis were performed on transcripts of the interviews...