Title:
Nurturing psycho-spiritual growth and integration through the core transformation process
Author:
Dinesh John Braganza
Thesis Advisor:
Ralph L. Piedmont
Committee Member:
Jesse D. Fox
Committee Member:
Geraldine M. Fialkowski
Committee Member:
L. Mickey Fenzel
Committee Member:
Richard M. Gray
Committee Member:
Amanda Thomas
Degree Granting Institution:
Loyola University Maryland--College of Arts and Sciences
Place:
Baltimore (Md.)
Publisher:
Loyola University Maryland
Date Created:
2015
Type of Resource:
text
Genre:
thesis
Language:
eng
Format:
application/pdf
Physical Form:
electronic
Digital Source:
born digital
Abstract:
This randomized clinical trial with a sample of adults from India explored the effects of the Core Transformation process on symptom experience and psychological growth. It also explored the effects of spirituality on treatment success and the reliability of change scores. An interrupted time-series with switching replications design was adopted. Random assignment of participants (N = 129) to either the immediate-treatment or the delayed treatment groups contributed to group equivalency. Most of the participants were women (87.6%), married (54.3%), Catholic (74.4%), reasonably well educated with graduate or post-graduate degrees (70.4%), and from a range of ethnic groups in India. Participants completed a series of measures on personality (Big Five IPIP 50), spirituality (Assessment of Spirituality and Religious Sentiments), symptoms (General Health Questionnaire ' 12), psychological maturity (Purpose in Life Test), emotional lability (Bradburn Affect Balance Scale), overall wellbeing, and an outcome checklist on three separate occasions, prior to and after receiving treatment. The primary researcher guided each participant individually through a single session of Core Transformation. The results indicated significant improvements over time on all the outcome measures, with similar patterns of change in both groups (Mean ds of 1.05 and 0.92 for immediate-treatment and delayed-treatment groups respectively). Large effect size improvements were demonstrated for symptom experience (d = 1.62), Emotional Stability (d = .99), Affect Balance (d = 1.04), and global wellbeing (d = .82), whereas Religious Involvement (d = .74), Religious Crisis (d = .72) and Purpose in Life (d = .72) demonstrated moderate effect size improvements. These findings compare favorably with other outcome research using both secular and spiritually oriented treatment modalities. Pre-treatment scores on spirituality demonstrated incremental validity over personality in predicting psychosocial outcomes post-treatment, explaining between 3% and 15% additional variance. Spirituality also demonstrated incremental validity in explaining additional variance in treatment change scores, with Universality explaining between 4% and 7% additional variance in residualized change scores of the outcome measures. Exploration of the differences between simple change scores and residualized change scores indicated that residualized change scores demonstrated better reliability and validity estimates. The significant results obtained in this study provide empirical evidence about the therapeutic benefits of Core Transformation and its suitability as a Pastoral Counseling intervention. Implications for research and clinical practice are discussed.
Degree:
Doctor of Philosophy
Level:
Doctoral
Discipline:
Pastoral Counseling
Restrictions on Access:
Author has given permission to make this work available online.
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Identifier:
BraganzaDJ-15
