Spiritual friendship: The influence of time, focus, mutuality, mindfulness, support and stress on a peer self-help dyad

The study examines a peer dyad called spiritual friendship, as practiced by the Quaker Studies Program (QSP) in Philadelphia from 1981-1985. Spiritual friendship consists of a commitment between friends to nurture spiritual growth in one another. Experiential reports indicate spiritual friendship resembles both Carl Rogers' helping relationship and peer dyads such as marriage enrichment and confidant friendship. The construct "focused friendship" is used to describe goal-oriented peer dyads.;The sample is 78 QSP participants. Respondents are placed in three groups based on the criteria: (1) did the spiritual friendship become well-established? and (2) was the spiritual friendship intentional or spontaneous? Groups are: Group 1, the established/intended group; Group 2, the established/not-intended group; Group 3, the not-established/intended group.;Research questions center on: (1) practice of helping relationship skills in spiritual friendship; (2) practice of focused friendship techniques (Time, Focus, Mutuality, Mindfulness, and Support) in spiritual friendship, and (3) the effect of life stress on the number of focused friendship techniques practiced by spiritual friends.;Instruments measure practice of helping relationship skills, presence of focused friendship techniques, and degree of life stress. Except for the Social Readjustment Rating Scale (Holmes and Rahe, 1967), all instruments are designed for the study.;Literature drawn from many disciplines serves three major functions. The literature illustrates the five basic techniques of focused friendship, examines helping relationship skills in focused friendship and explores the relation of stress to focused friendship.;Cover letters, questionnaires, and stamped, return-addressed envelopes were sent to all 385 QSP participants. Seventy-eight usable questionnaires were returned. Most analyses compare established spiritual friendships (Groups 1 and 2) with not-established spiritual friendships (Group 3).;Results show the established groups have very similar, high scores on measures of helping relationship skills and focused friendship techniques. The not-established group has consistently lower scores on these measures. Group differences are statistically significant. Stress has no relation to practice of focused friendship techniques. Conclusions are: (1) established spiritual friendships include practice of both helping relationship skills and focused friendship techniques and (2) spiritual friendship is not affected by the degree of stress in the lives of partners.