How Devout Catholics Use Religious Symbols and Religious Teachings to Cope During Personal Challenges

Abstract

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to explore how devout Catholics described how they used religious symbols and teachings to cope during times of personal challenges in southeastern Virginia in the United States of America. The sample included the faithful southeastern Virginia, who used religious symbols and teachings on a regular basis and actively worshipped in a church building or remotely a minimum of once a month. The theoretical foundation was Symbolic Interactionism Theory. The instruments to collect the data included questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. The data collection included demographics, descriptive statistics, and the descriptive data used in thematic analysis. The findings from this study provided insights into how the participants demonstrated the process of ascribing, understanding, and interpreting the meaning of using religious symbols and teachings in times of adversity. Recommendations for future research included quantitative studies to help measure the effect of using religious symbols and teachings to help the faithful cope and other qualitative studies to explore other genders, age ranges, and ethnicities’ use of symbols and teachings in times of adversity. Also, practitioners, behavioral counselors, clinicians, and other specialists in the medical and mental fields could incorporate a plan or strategy that may facilitate the use of resources to include the employment of religious symbols and religious teachings to help individuals cope based on their faith and spiritual beliefs.