Exploring the process and consequences of self-disclosure among novices in religious life

• Main Author: D'Souza, Henry
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2004
• Subjects: Self-disclosure > Religious aspects; Religious life; Novitiate
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_masteral/3146
• Institution: De La Salle University

This exploratory study was undertaken to explore the process and consequences of self-disclosure among the novices in religious life. The subjects of the study were novices (N=37) between the ages of 18-25 years, belonging to the four different men and women religious congregations of South India. This qualitative research utilized a survey questionnaire (N=20) and 10 cases for in-depth study as methods of collating data for this study. The results revealed that opening of their self or revealing their secrets to others is a tedious and painful process for the novices, particularly in determining the target and the content of their self-disclosure. Often they approach their self-disclosure from the perspective of rewards and punishment. A significant number of novices do not favor their disclosure to the novice master/mistress despite the fact that they are highly recommended to be as transparent as possible during their novitiate formation. Sharing information especially connected with their sexuality and personal weaknesses, the novices consider detrimental to their life and vocation. Those novices, particularly the women, who risked their disclosure either to the novice mistress or to their friends felt unburdened, relieved, and experienced the support of their target in overcoming their concerns, resulting in their psychosocial and physical well-being. Those novices, who failed to find an intimate friend or a trustworthy person to disclose to, suffered keeping the distressing information to themselves. Ruminating over the distressing information, they constantly became the victims of emotional and physical problems. They failed to obtain any support from others in overcoming their problems and remained indecisive in their vocation adding more weight to the burden they were already carrying.