Narrative Reconstruction and Content Analysis in the Interpretation of “Spiritual” Biographical Trajectories for Case Studies

Abstract

In this chapter we explain how we construct case studies, including analyses of narrative and content of the FDI. We take as point of departure the location of the case under study in the chart of openness to experience / mysticism . Then we proceed in direction of increasing depth of interpretation and compare the case under study with the respective focus group : First we present the results of central scales from our questionnaire, covering measures of personality , adult development and, of course, religiosity, second we turn to semantics and, in some case studies, inspect the individual semantic differentials with those of the respective focus group. Next, we present the “classic” FDI evaluation, ratings according to the Manual for faith development research along with exploratory evaluations of proxies for current concepts we consider to include. Then we turn to the FDI for a deeper analysis of content and narrative. Finally, we draw results from the different research methods together, thus achieving triangulation on the level of the single case. Now we first discuss the analysis of narrative and content and, in the second part of the chapter, we show how these are included in a case study .