SPIRITUALITY AS A WORKING MODEL IN BRIEF PSYCHOTHERAPY


Book Description

Spirituality as a Working Model in Brief Psychotherapy is a practical book that describes easily applicable methods for use by nontheologically trained therapists. The focus is on brief psychotherapy, since long-term treatment is no longer possible for many individuals today living busy lives on a limited budget. The book is unique in its approach involving real-life encounters between patients and therapists with years of experience in both spirituality and psychotherapy. While there are other books in the field of spirituality and psychotherapy, they are written from a traditional Freudian-based philosophy and do not include practical, easily applicable methods for use when time is limited. Most assume a traditional longer commitment by both therapist and patient, which today is often unrealistic. The authors of this book come from multiple disciplines including pastoral counseling, psychology, psychiatry, medicine, social work, and theology. Major areas of presentation include: Spirituality as a Multidimensional Model for Psychotherapy; The Ubiquity of Spirituality; Dynamics of Faith: Understanding Religion and Spirituality; Spirituality and the Therapist; Counseling Body/Soul Persons; Energy of Change; Spiritual Competence in a Medical Setting; Rituals and Symbols in Brief Psychotherapy; Working through the Steps of Spiritual Development; and Ethics in Spiritually Based Psychotherapy. The primary audience for this text is students in all the human behavior fields, professional counselors, clergy, chaplains, as well as professionals already in practice looking for better ways to achieve real results using brief psychotherapy. Each of the 11 chapters contains many practical applications for therapists.




Working with Spiritual Struggles in Psychotherapy


Book Description

Does my life have any deeper meaning? Does God really care about me? How can I find and follow my moral compass? What do I do when my faith is shaken to the core? Spiritual trials, doubts, or conflicts are often intertwined with mental health concerns, yet many psychotherapists feel ill equipped to discuss questions of faith. From pioneers in the psychology of religion and spirituality, this book combines state-of-the-art research, clinical insights, and vivid case illustrations. It guides clinicians to understand spiritual struggles as critical crossroads in life that can lead to brokenness and decline--or to greater wholeness and growth. Clinicians learn sensitive, culturally responsive ways to assess different types of spiritual struggles and help clients use them as springboards to change.




Spirituality in Psychotherapy


Book Description

This book explores how Western European psychotherapists, interviewed between 2016 and 2019, understand spirituality and how they address spiritual matters in clinical sessions.By studying a purposive sample of 15 Clinicians from Spain, England, Switzerland, Greece, Norway and Denmark, it was found that these shared similar views about spirituality, understood as dynamic, fluid and independent from religion. The interviewed psychotherapists showed great variation in their psychotherapy trainings, theoretical background and spiritual stances. However, the participants' rich narratives illustrate that independently from their personal and professional background they all approached spiritual matters from a client centered, humanistic perspective. Spirituality was often addressed heuristically, integrating different approaches in a creative manner through an array of interventions. Differences in the participants' religious and cultural background did not appear to determine the clinicians' views and approaches. Recommendations for practice are discussed, stressing the relevance of implementing a non-materialistic scientific paradigm that acknowledges different personal experiences, as a source of spiritual knowledge. The importance of keeping a non-judgmental perspective and the need to acknowledge views and practices of those considering themselves as spiritual but not religious are also highlighted.Different audiences may find this book relevant, for instance psychotherapists and those in charge of psychotherapy training programs wishing to integrate a spiritual perspective in clinical work independent from religious doctrines. Likewise, those interested in historical perspectives about the traditional exclusion of spirituality from clinical work as well as the current re-integration of non- dogmatic, fluid spiritual perspectives may find relevant information. The theoretical discussions and methodological explanations could be of interest for those considering to implement thematic analysis or to pursue qualitative studies from a collaborative and reflexive stance.




Spirituality and the Therapeutic Process


Book Description

In this text, practical strategies, techniques, and examples are used to show how spirituality can influence each stage of treatment from before the clinical intake, starting with an understanding of ethical practice guidelines and therapist self-awareness, through termination.




Spirituality and Religion in Counseling and Psychotherapy


Book Description

The goal of this book is to help counselors move from a respectful but hesitant neutrality to a skilled, and action-oriented sensitivity toward their clients' spirituality. The primary audience is professional counselors and psychotherapists, social workers, counselor and therapist educators, and counselors-in-training in college programs. The book presents and discusses recent theory and research on spirituality and religion with regard to counseling and psychotherapy. It builds on the premise that spirituality and religion deserve counselors' sensitive regard, informed understanding, and, as ethically and therapeutically appropriate, skillful integration into effective counseling treatment. The first two chapters present information, concepts, and background knowledge that undergird counseling approaches, skills, and techniques. Chapter Three focuses on the relationship dimension of counseling and discusses principles and practices for relating the spiritual/religious dimension of the counseling relationship. Chapter Four looks at systematic approaches for evaluating the appropriateness of including spiritual and religious issues in counseling, and Chapter Five addresses a variety of treatment approaches and techniques for working with clients' spiritual and religious concerns. (Contains over 400 references and an index.) (RJM)




Spirituality in Counseling and Psychotherapy


Book Description

Here, the authors share specific strategies suggesting holistic and sound interventions to include religion and spirituality into counselling and social work practice.




Spirit in Session


Book Description

Spirituality is an important part of many clients’ lives. It can be a resource for stabilization, healing, and growth. It can also be the cause of struggle and even harm. More and more therapists—those who consider themselves spiritual and those who do not—recognize the value of addressing spirituality in therapy and increasing their skill for engaging it ethically and effectively. In this immensely practical book, Russell Siler Jones helps therapists feel more competent and confident about having spiritual conversations with clients. With a refreshing, down-to-earth style, he describes how to recognize the diverse explicit and implicit ways spirituality can appear in psychotherapy, how to assess the impact spirituality is having on clients, how to make interventions to maximize its healthy impact and lessen its unhealthy impact, and how therapists can draw upon their own spirituality in ethical and skillful ways. He includes extended case studies and clinical dialogue so readers can hear how spirituality becomes part of case conceptualization and what spiritual conversation actually sounds like in psychotherapy. Jones has been a therapist for nearly 30 years and has trained therapists in the use of spirituality for over a decade. He writes about a complex topic with an elegant simplicity and provides how-to advice in a way that encourages therapists to find their own way to apply it. Spirit in Session is a pragmatic guide that therapists will turn to again and again as they engage their clients in one of the most meaningful and consequential dimensions of human experience.




Relational Spirituality in Psychotherapy


Book Description

"Spiritual and existential struggles tell a story about the quality of clients' lives, beyond what clinicians can learn from their mental health symptoms alone. This book presents the Relational Spirituality Model (RSM) of psychotherapy, a creative clinical process that engages existential themes to help people make sense of profound suffering or trauma. To promote healing and growth, practitioners using the RSM provide a secure and challenging therapeutic space, while guiding clients as they explore ways of relating to the sacred in their lives. In this model, therapeutic change is seen as an intense yet safe process of movement and tension between dwelling and seeking, stability and disruption. Assessment and intervention strategies focus on developmental systems-attachment, differentiation, and intersubjectivity-to restructure relationships with the self, others, and the sacred. In depth clinical case examples demonstrate how to respect diverse client perspectives on suffering and trauma, and apply the RSM in individual, couple, family, and group psychotherapy. Readers will find new ways of working within the spiritual, existential, religious, and theological concerns that infuse their clients' struggles and triumphs"--




A Psychobiography of John F. Kennedy, Jr.


Book Description

This book represents a psychobiographical story of John F. Kennedy, Jr. In reality, psychobiography is psychological biography—the intensive psychological study of an individual of historic significance within a sociocultural-historical context. It covers JFK Jr.’s search for identity and purpose, and the depths and vibrancy of his personality. The author approaches the life of JFK, Jr. as a psychologist and psychobiographer with the goal of understanding the workings of John’s mind; his inner feelings, fears, hopes, and desires perhaps not visible on the surface. Presented in four parts, Part One explores the death and legacy of John F. Kennedy, Jr. in a psychological and social context. His life and place in history is introduced, and the conditions around his death are deconstructed and examined. Psychological theories used to frame and understand Johns’ psychological development are briefly introduced, and his ethnic and religious influences are discussed. Part Two tells the story of John F. Kennedy, Jr.’s life in a somewhat chronological order. Important events and relationships in John’s life are discussed with respect to early childhood, early schooling, high school and college years, law school study, and his work as an Assistant District Attorney for Manhattan, including his co-founding of George magazine and his life with Carolyn Bessette. Part Three speculates on the future of John’s professional career and his marriage had the couple lived a full life. Emerging in this part is a strong impression that John was destined for a life in politics and that he would have succeeded in this quest. John’s marriage to Caroline Bessette and the possible directions of their partnership is analyzed. Borrowing from quantitative research methods in personality psychology, JFK Jr.’s personality traits on a popular and well-validated measure of personality is assessed. His personality profile is then compared to select U.S. presidents throughout history. Part Four provides additional theoretical and research methods information. The leading theories of personality and psychosocial development first introduced in Part One are expanded. Finally, ethical issues related to John’s psychobiography are explored and discussed. Additionally, the illustrations and tables supplement the text in exemplifying relevant data. This book will be an insightful resource to address unanswered questions about JFK Jr.’s life and potential future had he lived a full life.




Brief Psychotherapy and Spirituality


Book Description

The overarching theme of this book is that spiritually-oriented psychotherapy is entirely consistent with brief psychotherapeutic relationships. In advancing this claim, I first present an overview of contemporary spirituality and the brief psychotherapy movement. I later seek to describe the subtle but powerful connections that exist between certain approaches to brief therapy and the experience commonly referred to as cosmic consciousness. Before beginning a deliberate description of what I call Brief Spiritual Psychotherapy (BSP), I describe the experience of cosmic consciousness from the perspectives of Christian doctrine, Eastern philosophy and transpersonal psychology. Throughout I attempt to show how it is that these bodies of thought lay the conceptual groundwork in our day for the practice of therapy that is based upon a spiritual outlook. I follow this preparation with a discussion of the specifics of BSP, using the elements that are inherently involved in any psychotherapy - view of the client, view of the problem, role of the therapist, and theory of change -as orienting structure.