Journeys in Spiritually Integrated Therapy

If you were asked to share your spiritual autobiography what kinds of things would you include?  This came up for me recently in a class I taught on Spirituality in Psychotherapy.  In the area of spirituality, as in so many areas, the self-awareness of the clinician is key to our ability to handle sensitive information from our clients with tact and grace.  As such, I found myself reflecting on my own spiritual journey and how it interacts with the journeys of my clients.  Often, it provides a powerful point of connection and identification – yes, I know what it is … continue reading…

True God and Our Becoming Selves

I find myself reacting today to a familiar Evangelical concept: “The idea that we can tolerate sin in our lives while we enjoy fellowship with God is a direct contradiction[1]” (p. 77).  I grieve about this awful mischaracterization of the Biblical God that drives a wedge of distance between us and him. Consider this picture instead: The God I know joyfully enters our worst dens of iniquity and eats with us there. He is not ashamed or embarrassed by us.  He does not reject us if we do not live up to standard or wait for us to get it … continue reading…

Influence

Recently I watched 13 Reasons Why, a sad and grim show on Netflix about a girl who kills herself and leaves 13 tapes behind explaining that the reason she did so was because the people in her life failed her. Most of those people are other students at her high school.  In response to the show, there has been an outcry in the press about how the show failed to address mental health issues and unfairly cast blame.  I can understand that reaction – I share the stomach-churning knee-jerk refusal to believe that we are really capable of causing that … continue reading…