ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at Teresa's account of the sustained spiritual direction she received from the young Jesuit priests who acted as her confessors in the years 1554—9, in connection with early Jesuit views on the practices of mortification, obedience and general confession. The impact of cultural practices on giving individuals a sense of self was stressed by Foucault in his late works, Technologies of the Self and The Use of Pleasure, in which he moved from seeing subjects merely as passive ciphers of discipline and power, to speaking of 'practices of the self which affected the production of identity. In Spain in the 1550s the Jesuits promoted the practice of confession as an instrument for the 'spiritual direction' of the laity, as a formal and continuing relationship between an individual and a priest, based on an adaptation of the spiritual programme of the Ejercicios to the needs and circumstances of each person.
