The religious in formation: their level of self-disclosure to and trust in their spiritual director

• Main Author: Nahak, Joseph
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 1986
• Subjects: Self-disclosure; Novitiate > Psychology; Discipling (Christianity); Educational Psychology
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_masteral/1183
• Institution: De La Salle University

This study intended to find out whether the level of self-disclosure of the novices to and the level of their trust in their novice directors/directresses differed in sex and in age, and whether these novices' self-disclosure is related to their trust, to their perceived counseling competency, to age to years of experience in formation work of the directors/directresses. The design of the study was descriptive survey. The subjects were 160 novices, 80 females and 80 males, respectively, and 15 directors/directresses, derived mainly from 16 religious congregations in the archdiocese of Manila in the years 1985-1986. Four questionnaires were used, namely, self-disclosure questionnaire, inter-personal Relationship Scale, Director's Counseling Competency and Personal Data Sheet. The inter-correlations of the variables were treated by Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient (Pearson r) and the sex difference and age difference, by t test for the difference between two means. The following were the main results of the study. The female novices were significantly more disclosing than the male ones, and the older novices were significantly more disclosing than the younger ones, t (158) = 2.947, (p .05) and t (158) years of experience in formation work of the directors/directresses. Based on these findings, it is concluded that sex and age of the novices affected the level of their self-disclosure to, but not the level of their trust in their directors/directresses. The level of novices' self-disclosure to, was significantly related to their trust in their respective directors/directresses, to their perceived counseling competency, but not related to age and to years of experience of formation work of the directors/directresses. Some suggestions to novice directors/directresses and to future researchers, then were recommended.