Spirituality and searching for meaning in elder people

Authors

  • Ingrid Riedel

Abstract

Painted pictures of very old people (80-95 years) show the creativity and spirituality and the values providing experiences of deep meaning in life such as the experience of nature, of the house as a place to feel safe and contained and being in relationships. Memories of fulfilling work, friendship, partnership and family are also shown in the painted pictures. Reconciliating symbols such as rainbows or mandalas, spiritual places such as chapels are also depicted. Intense colours as an expression for the longing for a colourful life are the central characteristics of most pictures.

Keywords Painted pictures; Very old people; Creativity; Spirituality; Experiences of meaning; Longings

Author Biography

Ingrid Riedel

Riedel Ingrid, Dr. phil, Dr. theol., Prof. für Religionspsychologie an der Universität Frankfurt am Main, Lehranalytikerin und Supervisorin am Jung-Institut Zürich und Stuttgart. Praxis in Konstanz.

Korrespondenz: Sackgasse 1,
78464 Konstanz, Deutschland

Downloads

Published

2006-01-01

How to Cite

Riedel, I. (2006). Spirituality and searching for meaning in elder people. Psychotherapie-Wissenschaft, (1), 17–22. Retrieved from https://psychotherapie-wissenschaft.info/article/view/337

Issue

No. 1 (2006): Psychotherapie Forum 14/1 (veröffentlicht bei Springer Wien New York)

Section

Special Issue

License

This journal provides open access to its content in accordance with the basic premise that the free public availability of research benefits the exchange of knowledge throughout the world.

Authors wishing to publish in this journal agree to the following:

  1. The author/s retain/s the copyrights and consent/s to initial publication of the work in the journal under a Creative Commons Attribution licence, which allows third parties to use the work by citing the name/s of the author/s and this journal as initial publisher (in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 DE-Licence).
  1. The author/s can enter into additional contracts for the non-exclusive distribution (e.g. publish in a collection or book) of the version published in the journal, if the journal is cited as initial publisher.