The Study of Leisure-Spiritual Coping

• Main Authors: Wen-Ting Lin, 林文婷
• Other Authors: Yi-Chung Hsu
• Format: Others
• Published: 2013
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/42525227874380691265

碩士 === 國立東華大學 === 觀光暨休閒遊憩學系 === 101 === Research suggests that leisure conducive to spiritual coping, which helps alleviate, overcome, and transcend various stresses and challenges that people face. Spiritual coping may be viewed as the ways that people receive help from spiritual resources (e.g., higher power, spiritual practices, faith community) during periods of life stress, whereas leisure-spiritual coping refers to coping with stress though spirituality within the context of an individual’s leisure. The study used Heintzman’ s (2008) leisure-spiritual coping model as a theoretical foundation and analytical framework to explore the process of leisure-spiritual coping. The study population was people faced major life events. By using in-depth interviewing, 13 informants were interviewed from February to April, 2012. The results demonstrated the leisure-spiritual coping process that the respondents faced including (1) the major event stressor, (2) spiritual appraisals (e.g., attribution, primary appraisals, secondary appraisals), (3) person factors (e.g., religious orientation, worldviews), (4) leisure-spiritual coping behaviors (e.g., sacrilization and grounding, contemplative leisure, time and space, being away), (5) leisure-spiritual resources (e.g., connections with nature, others, transcendent other), and (6) meaning making (e.g., life purpose, transformation, growth). Three conclusions were drawn. First, this study empirically tested Heintzman’s (2008) leisure-spiritual coping model. Second, the model is process-oriented, transactional, dynamic and relational. Third, the processes of the model are significantly different because of gender, work and life experience, growth background and religious beliefs. Recommendations were made for therapeutic recreation and leisure service practitioners and future research.