Spiritual and psycho-spiritual counselling and psychotherapy: religion and spirituality in the therapy room

How I work with spirituality and religion as a counsellor and therapist: incorporating spiritual and psycho-spiritual aspects into counselling and psychotherapy

Spiritual and psycho-spiritual counselling can be a stand alone type of therapy and while that’s not specifically my approach, as someone whose spirituality is deeply important to me I do incorporate working with spiritual and religious beliefs into my therapy practice when it’s relevant for my clients.

So how can spirituality or religion be integrated into the counselling and psychotherapy journey? It feels important to reiterate that the first and most important consideration is whether a spiritual or religous perspective is relevant to each client. Many of my clients don’t hold any spiritual or religeous beliefs so this aspect doesn’t come into our work. For others, though, their religion or spiritual believes are a huge part of their experience.

Working with counselling clients to identify the resources that they can access to can bring meaning and support into their lives.

A big part of the work I do with almost all of my my counselling and therapy clients is working with them to identify the resources that they can access to can bring meaning and support into their lives. Resources can be things like support networks, hobbies and interests or strategies for responding to stress, depression and anxiety. There can also be more existential factors like the support that can be gained from a belief in something bigger that us.

From my own perspective, my spirituality has been a hugely supportive part of my life. From my belief system, which is rooted in Celtic-Paganism and influenced by teachings from Buddhism and yoga philosophy, to the community that I have connected with through shared perspectives and values. I take the view that our existence is a complex mystery and there are some things we can’t know. By acknowledging and accepting this we can loosen the need to control, which is often a huge contributes to psychological distress.

Spiritual and psycho-spiritual counselling, in alignment with this perspective, considers the soul, rather than just the mind. My counselling practice goes a step further as I believe that healing needs to be rooted in body, mind and soul, as well as considering the impact of oppressive systems and structures.

I believe that healing should be rooted in body, mind and soul, as well as considering the impact of oppressive systems and structures.

The spiritual and psycho-spiritual aspect of my work with clients might include exploration of metaphysical experience, connection to divinity, energy work, connection to the higher-self, spiritual practice and spiritual and religious frameworks. Again, this is client dependant. I always work from the client’s frame of reference, rather than bringing in my own beliefs. Spiritual and psycho-spiritual aspects are integrated with modern counselling psychology approaches, including psychodynamic therapy, gestalt therapy, somatic approaches and neuroscience.

Integrating a client’s spiritual or religious beliefs into the therapeutic process can support clients to explore their struggles from a heart centred place, while considering their place in the interconnected web of life. It can help us to zoom out and connect with something bigger as a resource while we explore our struggles.

It can also be an integral part of the work in terms of examining the religious or spiritual beliefs that have been handed down to us and our relationship with them. As well as working with clients who are exploring the affirming aspects of their beliefs, I have worked with clients who have experienced religious trauma or who have grown up in a religious or spiritual setting that no longer aligns with their belief system. This might sound complicated given that I hold spiritual beliefs that are important to me, however the client’s experience and their perspective is always the guiding factor, whether we’re exploring struggles connected to spirituality or something completely unrelated.

What are some issues that clients might wish to explore through a spiritual or psycho-spiritual therapy lens?

In Gestalt therapy, we talk about the ‘field’. The ‘field’ is the whole environment that we exist within and it includes all of our relationships, influences, and circumstances that affect us at any given moment. In this context everything is connected, so whether you’re coming to therapy to explore something that’s not directly connected to your spirituality or religion, like depression or trauma, or something that specifically is, like a crisis of faith, your spiritual or religious beliefs impact your experience.

There are also specific things that you might want to explore through a psycho-spiritual lens and they could include life purpose and meaning, existential fears like a fear of death, a crisis of faith, guilt and shame, your connection to a higher power or making sense of and integrating experiences that feel beyond rational understanding. Whether you want to come to therapy to specifically explore spiritual issues or your spiritual beliefs might be a wider part of your ‘field’. What ever the case, I work with people of all faiths and beliefs in an affirming and supportive way. I should also reiterate that I also work with people who don’t have any spiritual or religious beliefs.

How can exploring spirituality or religion in the therapy room help me?

That kind of depends on you and what you want to bring to counselling. I work with each client a little differently because you are unique and so is your experience, even if you share some elements of it with other people. Whether we are working with spirituality and religion or not, the therapy process unfolds in a way that responds to what ever you’re wanting to explore or work on. Your religion or spirituality might be the main focus of therapy or it might be a contextual part of your experience. My role is to support you to explore your own process.

I talk a little more about how I work as a therapist here. What can be different in psycho-spiritual work is a shared understanding around things that are beyond our comprehension and understanding and that faith, what ever that looks like for you, can play a hugely supportive and healing role in your therapy journey.

I am here to embrace your own understanding and experience of your spirituality or religon and the role that it plays in your life.

For clients who share my Celtic-Pagan frame of reference, exploring nature based counselling might feel aligned. For clients who are interested in yogic philosophy we might explore aspects of the energy systems. If you have your own religious or spiritual beliefs that sit outside of my own, we can explore how to integrate that into our work, always with the reassurance that I am here to embrace your own understanding and experience of your faith and the role that it plays in your life.

If you would like to explore your spirituality or religious beliefs in therapy, I’d love to hear from you. You can get in touch here.