Marital Experience and Spirituality among Physician Couples

<p>This study will examine how marital experience and spirituality interact in the lives of physician couples. Physicians’ increasing openness to spiritual issues inherent in treating the ill and suffering (King, 2000; Thorsen, Harris & Oman, 2001), the growing number of women entering the medical profession and becoming physician and dual physician couples (Levinson & Lurie, 2004; Brotherton & Etzel, 2008), and physicians’ work-related stress (Transue, 2004; Wicks, 2006) and the resulting pressures and time constraints on medical marriages (Sotile & Sotile, 2000) make studying this population particularly relevant. Interviews with twenty two married, professional couples, in which at least one spouse is a physician, will investigate spousal experiences from a relational perspective informed by feminist theory (Fishbane, 2001 & 2007; Knudson-Martin & Mahoney, 2009). Relationality will be conceptualized as including attunement, authenticity, relational responsibility and mutual influence. This relational feminist theoretical perspective will be used in tandem with grounded theory (Charmaz, 2006) in a qualitative analysis exploring the relationship between how physician couples experience relationality with God and with their spouse. Connections between spirituality and couple relationships will be examined through a contextual understanding of relational and power dynamics. Based on the findings, implications will be suggested for possible therapeutic interventions with physician couples. Suggestions will be made for future research in the area of further understanding the connection between spirituality and marriage among physician couples and other types of couples.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Marital and Family Therapy

Year

2011

Author dc:creator

• Esmiol, Elisabeth vonEgen

Contributors dc:contributor

• Knudson-Martin, Carmen
• Wilson, Colwick
• Hernandez, Barbara
• Lee, Cameron

• Counseling
• Marriage and Family Therapy and Counseling
• Social and Behavioral Sciences
• Marriage -- Psychological aspects; Physicians -- Psychology; Physicians' spouses -- Psychology; Dual-career families
• Physicians -- psychology
• Marital Experience
• Spirituality
• Relational Feminist Theoretical Perspective

Statement dc:rights

• This title appears here courtesy of the author, who has granted Loma Linda University a limited, non-exclusive right to make this publication available to the public. The author retains all other copyrights.

Language dc:language

English

Repository record dc:identifier

https://scholarsrepository.llu.edu/etd/183

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholarsrepository.llu.edu:etd-1189