Attached to Paper Session
Meeting Preference
My Ph.D. dissertation used Grounded Theory to explore how Pentecostals living in the United States experienced depression and how their Pentecostal faith shaped those experiences. My AAR presentation wishes to present a summary of my Ph.D. dissertation.
Pentecostalism comprises diverse groups of organizations, institutions, and movements committed to a “miracle-affirming, praise-oriented version of the Christian faith” that is focused on the Spirit (Jacobsen, 2005, 11–2); their conceptualization of which is replete with human desires, projections, cultural elements, and social influences (Miller and Yamamori, 2017). They are also three times more likely than people of other religious affiliations to experience depression (Meador et al., 1992). While depression is a psychological-biological condition (Koenig, 2005), personal, social, and cultural contexts shape how sufferers understand, experience, interpret, and respond to depression (Blazer, 2005; Huang and Fang, 2015; Abrams and Curran, 2009; et al.).
Like depression, the sociocultural context shapes how Pentecostals understand and express themselves (Medina, 2021). Still, there is little research about how the Pentecostal context might shape depression experiences and vice versa. The few studies there are suggest that Pentecostals experience depression within a nexus of social interactions (Allan, 2018; Swinton, 2001). However, these studies do not contribute to a comprehensive body of research on the topic. Additionally, Pentecostals have a higher likelihood of experiencing depression compared to individuals of other religious affiliations (Meador et al., 1992). This suggests that there are certain factors within the Pentecostal context that contribute to depression. Arlene Stein (2011) reminds us that when individual problems are widespread in society, they are not just personal troubles but social issues that require sociological analysis to understand their root causes. Dan Blazer (2005) supports Stein’s observation, noting that people living in a particular society will react to that society. Hence, Grounded Theory research, like this dissertation, is necessary to explain the social processes at work and how these processes affect Pentecostals.
This study used Grounded Theory to explore how Pentecostals experience depression and how their context shapes their experiences. Grounded Theory aims to build a theory to help understand the studied phenomenon that links it to broader contextual processes contributing to the phenomenon’s construction (Charmaz, 2006). The dissertation collected data through open, in-depth interviews with twenty participants living in the United States who self-identified as Pentecostal and said they had depression either through medical or self-diagnosis. The study analyzed the data using Charmaz’s (2006) and Corbin and Strauss’ (2015) techniques until saturation (Charmaz, 2006). It then drew upon literature from the broader Christian tradition, Pentecostal theology, and the social sciences to interpret the theory and explore how their Pentecostal context shapes their experiences.
“The paradox of Spirit-empowered depression” was the grounded theory that emerged. The theory aimed to capture the paradoxical relationship between depression and the participants’ Pentecostal faith, which included both liberating and oppressive dimensions structured around their conceptualization that the Spirit would give them the power to control their lives. The theory suggested that although depression disrupted the participants’ lives, depression was also liberating because it made the participants aware of behaviors, attitudes, and theologies in their Pentecostal contexts that “were not of God.” Conversely, the relationship was also oppressive because the participants’ use of therapeutic resources perpetuated the same social structures and theological constructions that contributed to their depression in the first place. The resources did this by encouraging participants to focus on self-care and the Spirit’s ability to empower them at the expense of obscuring the broader socio-theological factor that contributed to their depression.
The analysis showed that participants’ Pentecostal contexts effectively prevented them from seeing beyond themselves, making them unwitting participants in their own oppression. Additionally, there was no feedback loop that integrated participants’ experiences back into the Pentecostal social system. This lack of integration prevented particpants from realizing the system’s banality and hindered social transformation. While future studies may explore this point further, it is important to consider that the Pentecostal social system, which oppressed the participants, is itself oppressed because of its reliance on the belief that its conceptualization of the Spirit is correct. Thus, in order to bring about change in Pentecostalism and its consequences, it is crucial for future praxis models to establish and promote dialogue between the oppressed and the oppressor to work toward a renewed pneumatology.
Abstract for Online Program Book (maximum 150 words)
Described as the “common cold” of mental health problems, depression is a burgeoning issue in the United States. Although depression is commonly pathologized as a biochemical, clinical disorder, there are claims that personal, social, and cultural contexts shape depression and that it is the contemporary society that makes people depressed. However, there is little research exploring how the Pentecostal social context might contribute to or shape Pentecostals’ experiences of depression. This dissertation contributes to this research gap. It uses Grounded Theory to facilitate an interpretative interaction between the researcher and the data to answer the research question of how Pentecostals living in the United States experience, understand, and respond to depression. The emergent theory helps explain the participants’ depression experiences and the meaning they created around those experiences while also exploring how their meanings and actions are embedded and shaped within larger social constructs.