Life is full of transitions. These transitions have to be addressed, shaped, processed and integrated into our lives in some way. Regardless of the belief in a God, traditional structures always come into view, here especially religiously traditional rites of passage such as baptism and circumcision, communion and bar mitzvah, marriage as well as convalescence, death and funeral rites. What is the psychological function of religiously traditional rites of passage today? This question will be investigated with the help of interactive interviews with functionaries and members of the religious communities of all three monotheistic currents in Northern Europe, flanked by two interviews with atheists.
Author(s): Kathrin Rothenberg-Elder
Publisher: Springer
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 268
City: Wiesbaden
Preface
Thanks
Contents
Part I: Departure
1: Retrospective and New Approach: From 1997 to 2020
2: Religious Traditional Rituals Today
3: Research Questions
4: Benefits of this Work
5: Disciplinary Location
6: Location of the Work Within the Scientific Quality Criteria
Part II: Exploration of Resources
7: Coffee and Salt: A Scientific-Theoretical Positioning of Relevant Conceptualizations
8: Psychological Terms in the Research Field
8.1 My Father’s Ashes: Symbol and Metaphor
8.2 The Garden of Images: Religion as a System of Metaphors
8.3 Rituals as Metaphorical Actions
8.4 Linear and Cyclical Rituals
8.5 Examples of the Metaphorical Structure of Rituals
8.6 Beyond Action: A Psychosocial Definition of Rituals
8.7 The Place at the Border: A Psychosocial Definition of Transitional Rituals
8.8 Religiously Traditional Transitional Rituals: An Overview
8.9 Related Terms to Ritual and Their Discriminatory Power to Ritual
9: Religious Practice Today: An Assessment of the Current Situation
9.1 Religious Practice Today
9.2 Atheism and Religious Participation Today
9.3 Religious Practice in Ritual Yesterday and Today
9.4 Transitional Transitional Rituals Today
Part III: Empirical Explorations
10: The Qualitative Methodology: Scientific Justification
10.1 Methodological Positioning of the Chosen Instruments
10.2 The Qualitative Method in the Context of Constructivism
10.3 Interview Forms: What Effect Do Different Standardizations Have?
10.4 The Role of Language in Qualitative Methods
10.5 Justification of the Method by Means of the Quality Criteria
10.6 Ethical Precautions During Interviews
11: The Interviews: Preliminary Work
11.1 The Narrative, Non-directive Interview
11.2 Competencies of the Interviewer
11.3 Forms of Recording and Transcriptionxx
11.4 Selection and Acquisition of Interview Partners
11.5 Implementation Along the Interview Guide
11.6 Evaluation Procedure Chosen
11.7 Case Descriptions
Part IV: The Psychosocial Effects of Religiously Traditional Transitional Rituals
12: The Visible Psychosocial Agents
12.1 The Role of the Initiator
12.2 The Role of the Liturgist
12.3 The Festive Community
13: Overview of the Psychosocial Effects of Religiously Traditional Transitional Rituals
14: Transitional Rituals as Architects of Experienced Reality
14.1 Overview
14.2 Transitional Rituals Structure Reality
14.3 Sense and Sensuality: Transitional Rituals Make Reality Communicable
14.4 The Normative Power of the Factual: Rituals as a Framework of Normality
14.5 Rituals: A Celebration for Life – Transitional Rituals Stage the Non-Ordinary
14.6 “When We Fight Our Nature”: Transitional Rituals Control Feelings and Actions
14.7 Music as a Motor for Controlling Feelings and Actions
14.8 The Importance of Narration in Transitional Rituals
15: Transitional Rituals as Mediators and Stabilizers of Individual and Social Identity
15.1 Identity or the Art of Building a Mobile
15.2 Identity and Ritual
15.3 Transitional Rituals as Construction Scripts for Promoting Coherence
15.4 Biography and Ritual
16: Transitional Rituals for Group Initiation and Group Bonding
16.1 Overview: The Social Context
16.2 Transitional Rituals as Social Initiation Processes
16.3 Group Bonding
16.4 Opportunities and Risks of Initiation Processes Today
17: Religiously Traditional Transitional Rituals Using the Example of Death and Dying
17.1 Dying and Death Today
17.2 Dying
17.3 Burial
18: Psychological Suggestions for the Design of Religiously Traditional Transitional Rituals: A Survey
Part V: Summary and Conclusion
19: Summary
20: Open Questions, Limits of This Work
21: Correspondances Vivantes: Social Challenges Today in the Context of Rites of Passage
Bibliography
