The Emergence of Emotional Intelligence and Spiritual Sensibility in an

Intensive Spiritual Program

Asun Puche & Luis Botella

FPCEE Blanquerna

Universitat Ramon Llull

Spiritual Sensitivity (2s)

The Spiritual Sensitivity (2s) of a

person is greater to the extent that

his/her patterns of thought,

meaning attribution , awareness,

and consciousness allow him/her:

To transcend

the obvious

and to

operate from

patterns of

post-formal

thinking.

Spiritual Sensitivity (2s)

To be maximally

aware of

him/herself, the

world and his/her

own place in it.

Spiritual Sensitivity (2s)

To be maximally

aware of the multi-

dimensional patterns

that mutually link

him/herself to the

systems that he/she

is embedded in.

Spiritual Sensitivity (2s)

To recognize the

constructed nature

of the limits between

the self, the world

and the others, and

consequently, the

intrinsic unicity of

reality.

Spiritual Sensitivity (2s)

To place his/her actions

and his/her life in a

wider (self-

transcendence), deeper

(reflexivity), and more

meaningful context.

Spiritual Sensitivity (2s)

To interact with the

world that he/she

is part of, by being

focused in the

here and now.

Spiritual Sensitivity (2s)

To be maximally

aware of his/her

belonging to a

global community.

Spiritual Sensitivity (2s)

Emotional Intelligence

The ability to perceive emotions, to

use

(integrate) emotions to facilitate

thinking,

to understand emotions, and to

regulate emotions (Salovey&Mayer).

Goal of the Study

To clarify the relations between

Spiritual Sensibility and Emotional

Intelligence through an in-depth

qualitative analysis of a first-person

narrative of a participant in an

intensive spiritual program (the 30-day

Ignatian Spiritual Exercises Retreat).

Intensive Spiritual Program : 30-day Ignatian Spiritual

ExercisesThe Ignatian Spiritual Exercises are an

intensive

Christian spiritual practice to help people

attain

a state of unitive consciousness so as to be

“contemplative in action”.

Participant

The narrative analyzed in this case

study corresponds to a 33 years old

women, Catholic nun, who

participated for the first time in the

intensive spiritual program.

Instruments

Spontaneous self-biographic

narrative in a diary format that was

elaborated by the participant

throughout de 30-day duration of

the program.

Procedure

In-depth qualitative analysis by

means of a combination of a

Grounded Theory Methodology and

methods of textual discourse

analysis.

Results

The analysis of the self-biographic

narrative yielded 73 categories grouped

in 6 core categories: (1) Contextual

Information, (2) Daily Organization, (3)

Reflexive Comments, (4) Experience of

the Spiritual Exercises, (5) Synthetic

Summary (6) Global Evaluation.

Results

The 73 emergent categories were

classified according to the

components of the Spiritual

Sensitivity (2s) and Emotional

Intelligence (EI), and they were

distributed thus:

SE1P

ostfo

rmal

Thi

nkin

g

SE2S

elf-a

waren

ess

SE3S

yste

mic a

waren

ess

SE4A

war

enes

s of

uni

city

SE5S

elf-t

rans

cend

ence

SE6H

ere

and

now

SE7A

war

enes

s of

com

mun

ity

IE1P

erce

ivin

g

IE2U

sing

IE3U

nder

stan

ding

IE4R

egul

atin

g0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

1820

12 13

43

16

6

19

26

19

25

Total Units of Analysis in Each Category

Discussion

The distribution of the unities and

their overlap shows the relation

between Spiritual Sensitivity and

Emotional Intelligence, and with the

Spiritual Exercises.

Discussion

At least, in the context of the

analyzed case study, Emotional

Intelligence could be considered a

manifestation of Spiritual Sensitivity

applied to the field of emotions.

Discussion

Nevertheless, to extend this

conclusion to a more generic

context depends on the meaning

attributed to the term “spiritual”.

Discussion

If the spiritual experience is

considered as another field of

human experience, then the

relationship between 2s and EI

should not be that of subordination

but of hierarchical horizontality.

Genetic capicity to construe

experience

Intellectual experience

IQ

Emotional experience

EI

Spiritual experience

SE

Musical experience

Musical sensitivity

Body experience

Kinesthetic intelligence

Artistic experience

Aesthetic sensitivity

Discussion

If the spiritual experience is

considered superordinate to the

others (i.e. as founded in the full

awareness that sustains the

experience of all the others) then it is

coherent to represent it as

hierarchically superior.

Spiritual Sensitivi

ty

Emotional

Experience

“Beyond what we feel, even if it happens in

our bodies, in the depths of our selves,

there is an invisible presence”.