Spiritual Counseling
Spiritual Counseling is a one to one conversation that focuses on the spiritual dimensions of your life or your difficulties.
Spiritual Counseling does not exclude conversations about your cognitions, relationships and feelings, but also more distinctively focuses on what meanings you draw from your life experiences.
Essentially we humans are meaning-making creatures. We need meaning as much as we need food, water, self esteem and intimacy. Our lack of meaning or faulty meanings can make us sick or well, as surely as a lack of food or poor nutrition can.
“Meanings” are both cognitive and experiential. Our meanings are reflected in our thoughts, but also in our spirituality, values, attachments and behaviors. In this regard, we sometimes distinguish in the field of spiritual counseling between a person’s formal theology (cognitions) and his or her “operational theology”— the beliefs and values that are reflected in our actual lives or daily behaviors.
Dealing with Depression
Spiritual Counseling is an important element in a holistic approach to psychological health because often the “meaning” or purpose we derive from our difficulties is a crucial element in reinforcing or releasing us from such illness. In the case of depression, we sometimes experience deep meaninglessness or despair (hopelessness) about our lives, or our disabilities or relationships that contribute significantly to depression. In turn, when we can identify a positive purpose, find some good in, learn lessons from or see where we have grown from our difficulties, we are able to transcend depression, learning to live beyond it.
When it comes to dealing with depression in the context of spiritual counseling, the following are some of the typical topics or themes of treatment:
Overall, meaning or purpose of one’s life Why am I here on earth? Does my life have significance? Is the world a better place for me having lived? Have I identified my unique gifts and fulfilled my calling in life? Do I have a sense of calling or life’s work? And am I fulfilling that calling?
- Meaning of my suffering (or specifically, depression). Why has it occurred? Is it random or is there a larger, greater purpose that my suffering brings? What am I supposed to learn from this suffering? Is there any good that is or could come out of this suffering?
- Divine’s Presence and Personal Significance Depressed people often feel distant, abandoned by God or however they define the Holy. Helping them to experience the presence of God on a regular basis, even amid periods of suffering, can mitigate the depression. The Divine presence that depressed people need to experience must be both personal and affirmative, helping them embrace the significance of their lives.
- Gratitude Sometimes depressed persons are resentful about how life has treated them. They feel victimized. Being able to identify one’s blessings and find a sense of gratitude, even for the smallest of everyday wonders and joys, is a wonderful antidote for depression.
- Hope When depressed people look to their future, they can feel hopeless, despairing that they will never get better. Such people need a sense of hope, but they do not need a hope that is placed in a false optimism, but rooted in reality. Hope must be more than denial. Authentic hope transcends the present moment, with a larger perspective, larger vision and better future, thus creating a motivation for positive action.
- Forgiveness Some people who are depressed have internal processes that are rigid, self critical, even perfectionistic, thus reinforcing the dynamics of depression. Helping depressed people to accept themselves, their faults, failures and their past, however distasteful, is important. In addition, depressed people may have specific “sins” or failures that they feel guilty or ashamed about, for which they need an experience of absolution and forgiveness. Helping people ask for and get forgiveness is an important element in all spiritual approaches to life.
- Serenity Some people who are depressed are filled with chronic tension or frustrations related to expectations that are unrealistic, attachments that are lost or addictions that are enslaving. “Letting go” of these expectations, attachments or addictions, can help one find inner peace and contentment. In addition, one finds one’s true self, as one detaches from worldly, false or lost attachments. This is a common spiritual path among the great religions of the world, and one that has some relevance for people struggling with depression.
- Integrity Some people who are depressed are struggling with authenticity, being true to their values, true to themselves, finding their “voice” amid all of the pressures to conform to the values and norms of the mass media. The desire to “do the right thing” is strong in most people, but seldom is the right thing obvious or easy. Some people who are depressed struggle with making hard decisions, sorting out their morals, values and ethics, in an otherwise relativistic world.
Certainly people who are depressed or bipolar can and do bring other concerns to the spiritual counselor and individual clients will vary in terms of the relative importance of the above issues, but generally, we have found that conversations on the above topics are often helpful to people struggling with depression.
Spiritual counseling, as practiced in the Bipolar Advantage program generally focuses around short term treatment, which focuses not just on therapeutic conversations in the counseling office, but on motivating the client to “practice” various spiritual disciplines or exercises that will strengthen and resolve these issues in between formal counseling sessions.
Spiritual counseling, like other forms of counseling, begins with an assessment that identifies treatment goals.
Where can I find a spiritual counselor?
Spiritual Counseling should be provided by a professional who is dually trained in both psychological counseling and theology/spirituality, often having both academic and clinical training in both of these areas. Certified pastoral counselors (AAPC) are one such profession who meets these academic and clinical qualifications. By definition and by provision of the respective Codes of Ethics of this profession, pastoral counselors are not here to proselytize or impose their theology upon you, but to work with you within your spiritual tradition and frame of reference.
R. Scott Sullender, Ph.D.
Diplomate, American Association of Pastoral Counselors
Associate Professor of Pastoral Counseling
San Francisco Theological Seminary, San Anselmo, CA.
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