{"id":33,"date":"2015-01-26T21:43:39","date_gmt":"2015-01-26T21:43:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/herne-hill-counselling.co.uk\/blog\/?p=33"},"modified":"2015-01-26T21:43:39","modified_gmt":"2015-01-26T21:43:39","slug":"the-place-of-spirituality-within-counselling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/herne-hill-counselling.co.uk\/blog\/the-place-of-spirituality-within-counselling\/","title":{"rendered":"The place of Spirituality within Counselling"},"content":{"rendered":"

I believe that a person is more than just the sum of their parts \u2013 whether those parts are our physical body, the contents of our minds or something more difficult to define.
\nIn Psychosynthesis a person is said to embody of a host of \u2018subpersonalities\u2019 \u2013 all the different roles into which we fall and the different people we become in different situations. However, above and beyond all of these subpersonalities is something more \u2013 an \u2018I\u2019 – who could be described as the central core of who we are. A classic Psychosynthesis exercise that I learned from Will Parfitt [1], draws our awareness to all the parts of us but then helps us to see that they alone do not totally describe us. In the exercise, attention is drawn to our bodies, our minds and our emotions. Once we have noticed each of these things, it is easier to let go of the various \u2018identifications\u2019 that we carry and to look beyond them to try to find the \u2018I\u2019 at the very heart of our Selves.<\/p>\n

In the practice, we focus our attention on aspects of ourselves \u2013 body, mind, soul, emotions and say \u2018I have a body, but I am more than my body\u2019, I have a mind, but I am more than my mind\u2019. I found this exercise was immensely useful in expressing the idea that I was all these different things yet none of them entirely defined me. I believe I am more than all of the parts of me \u2013 there is something more.<\/p>\n

The nature of this \u2018I\u2019, this \u2018something more\u2019 is a question that has occupied humans for as long as we have existed and the opinions are as numerous as the individual people who hold them. In some sense, this search or connection with this part of oneself can be thought of as a spiritual act.<\/p>\n

For some, an organised religion, attendance at a place of worship creates a very obvious spiritual life, for others, their spirituality is a private thing that is barely defined. In twelve step programmes, the participant is required to find a \u2018higher power\u2019 in which to put his or her trust in order to heal from their addiction. This higher power does not have to be God, or Allah, Buddha, or Jesus \u2013 it can be as simple as allowing a person\u2019s group to be their higher power. There is however, a need for something. It is also the case that people completely eschew spirituality preferring instead, a rationalist approach to life where everything can be explained entirely by science and where consciousness is merely a function of brain activity. Few would deny, however, that thinking about the meaning of life and the nature of being can engender questions and difficulties of a \u2018spiritual\u2019 nature!
\nIn my life, spirituality fills a need in me, a yearning for something I can\u2019t quite define, although I know it when I feel it. When I haven\u2019t tended to my spiritual self I begin to feel the yearning. It is a pull to connect, to plug into the life force. For me, I find that \u2018life electricity\u2019 in nature and ritual and it\u2019s important to me. It fills a space within me that is not filled by anything else. Without it, I am not fully alive, I feel dull and dreary \u2013 something is missing.<\/p>\n

I have also in my life had experiences that are beyond the rational, seeing things that have behaved in ways contrary to normal reality, and have had feelings that might be termed \u2018peak experiences\u2019 \u2013 a term that comes from Abraham Maslow\u2019s work [2] and that he describes as \u201crare, exciting, oceanic, deeply moving, exhilarating, elevating experiences that generate an advanced form of perceiving reality, and are even mystic and magical in their effect upon the [experient]\u201d<\/em>. These types of experiences might come from nature, art, music, relationships, sex or physical achievements but, to me, they are most of all about spirituality and about the connection we have to out higher self, to Spirit, to God or even just to certain excitable areas of our brain.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_8989\"Maslow considered these peak experiences to be one of the most important experiences that we can have as humans. To him they represented that a person was \u2018self-actualising\u2019 \u2013 a term used to describe when a person is able to work towards being all that they can be, to become truly themselves.<\/p>\n

Everyone will have their own \u2018peak experiences\u2019 and their own way of expressing their spiritual aspect. It is important to note that, in talking about the \u2018spiritual\u2019, I do not necessarily mean the religious although for some the two will equate and that is fine. Spirituality can be as simple as fulfilling the desire in life that is beyond the acquisition of things.<\/p>\n

Some people believe that religion or spirituality, or the desire to connect with the \u2018numinous\u2019 are an instinctive human trait. Carl Jung, one of the founders of Psychoanalysis firmly believed that this was the case writing that \u2018Spirituality is so important in mental and physical health because every human has within and innate impulse to know the Divine, to form a conscious relationship with something larger than oneself.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

In my work as a counsellor, I have noticed that many of my clients want to bring a spiritual experience or a religious belief into the sessions but have been wary \u2013 not knowing how I might react to this. They are often relieved when I make it clear that their spirituality, in whatever form it might take, is a welcome addition to the work of therapy. It has sometimes led to a new openness from them and enhanced our relationship.
\nIn counselling then, if I go to talk about my problems, I need my counsellor to see me as a whole person, not just as a collection of parts, one of which isn\u2019t quite working properly. If my counsellor is not open to my spiritual dimension, or I do not feel open to bringing it into the sessions because I feel my counsellor may not understand, I am not able to be fully myself in my counselling sessions. How then, can I expect to be entirely free to heal and develop?<\/p>\n

So, spirituality in counselling conveys a host of benefits:<\/span><\/p>\n