What place does spiritual need and healing have in the counselling room? Denying the spiritual dimension of personal distress can be potentially hurtful to clients, but the issue of spirituality is also fraught with professional and ethical issues for therapists. This book draws on original research to move the debate about spiritual need forwards in relation to therapeutic practice, supervision, and training. An international team of contributors offer a diverse range of perspectives to critically explore a wide spectrum of spiritual issues, including prayer, pastoral care and traditional healing. Edited by a leading figure in the field, this book: - Illuminates experiences of both clients and practitioners through detailed case vignettes - Draws on cutting-edge research in this growing field - Invites readers to address their own therapeutic practice with hands-on discussion points This measured and thoughtful approach provides a fascinating insight to an often complex and controversial topic. As such, the book is essential reading for trainees and practitioners of counselling and psychotherapy.

What place does spiritual need and healing have in the counselling room? Denying the spiritual dimension of personal distress can be potentially hurtful to clients, but the issue of spirituality is also fraught with professional and ethical issues for therapists. This book draws on original research to move the debate about spiritual need forwards in relation to therapeutic practice, supervision, and training. An international team of contributors offer a diverse range of perspectives to critically explore a wide spectrum of spiritual issues, including prayer, pastoral care and traditional healing. Edited by a leading figure in the field, this book: - Illuminates experiences of both clients and practitioners through detailed case vignettes - Draws on cutting-edge research in this growing field - Invites readers to address their own therapeutic practice with hands-on discussion points This measured and thoughtful approach provides a fascinating insight to an often complex and controversial topic. As such, the book is essential reading for trainees and practitioners of counselling and psychotherapy.

Reflecting the increasing recognition of the importance of the spiritual in healing, Spirituality and Art Therapy is an exciting exploration of the different ways in which the spiritual forms an essential, life-enhancing component of a well-rounded therapeutic approach. The contributors are leading art therapists who write from diverse perspectives, including Christian, Jewish, Buddhist and shamanic. They explain how their own spiritual and creative influences interact, finding expression in the use of art as a healing agent with specific populations, such as bereaved children, emotionally disturbed adolescents, and the homeless. The relationships between spirituality and visual art, art therapy and transpersonal psychology are examined. Story and image are interwoven in the spiritual journeys of therapists and clients, and suggested creative exercises make this an accessible, practical resource for those who desire to understand and execute an holistic method of therapy. Arguing that art therapists can mediate between the sacred and the mundane, this pioneering book is an affirmation of the transformative power of art therapy.

Psychedelics as therapeutic catalysts for emotional and spiritual transformation • Explores the latest medical research on the healing powers of entheogens • Reveals the crucial role of tribal and shamanic wisdom in psychedelic medicine • Provides guidelines for working with psychedelics, including the author’s personal healing and recommendations for creating change on the spiritual and societal levels Banned after promising research in the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s, the use of psychedelics as therapeutic catalysts is now being rediscovered at prestigious medical schools, such as Harvard, Johns Hopkins, NYU, and UCLA. Through clinical trials to assess their use, entheogens have been found to ease anxiety in the dying, interrupt the hold of addictive drugs, cure post-traumatic stress disorder, and treat other deep-seated emotional disturbances. To date, results have been positive, and the idea of psychedelics as powerful psychiatric--and spiritual--medicines is now beginning to be accepted by the medical community. Exploring the latest cutting-edge research on psychedelics, along with their use in indigenous cultures throughout history for rites of passage and shamanic rituals, Neal Goldsmith reveals that the curative effect of entheogens comes not from a chemical effect on the body but rather by triggering a peak or spiritual experience. He provides guidelines for working with entheogens, groundbreaking analyses of the concept--and the process--of change in psychotherapy, and, ultimately, his own story of psychedelic healing. Examining the tribal roots of this knowledge, Goldsmith shows that by combining ancient wisdom and modern research, we can unlock the emotional, mental, and spiritual healing powers of these unique and powerful tools, providing an integral medicine for postmodern society.

This book seeks to define, redefine and identify indigenous and traditional healing in the context of North American and Western European health care, particularly in counseling psychology and psychotherapy.

Drawing on narrative, postmodern, and other therapeutic perspectives, this book guides therapists in exploring the creative and healing possibilities in clients' spiritual and religious experience. Vivid personal accounts and dialogues bring to life the ways spirituality may influence the stories told in therapy, the language and metaphors used, and the meanings brought to key relationships and events. Applications are discussed for a wide variety of clinical situations, including helping people resolve relationship problems, manage psychiatric symptoms, and cope with medical illnesses.

Increasing numbers of professionals in the fields of psychology and therapy are seeking to incorporate elements of spirituality into their therapeutic oeuvre, addressing not only mental and emotional issues, but also the soul. This book discloses how indigenous traditions can be adapted to offer practitioners a highly effective repertoire of insights, psycho-spiritual approaches and therapeutic tools. The underlying concepts and world-views of indigenous and contemporary shamanism are explained and tied in with current developments in psychology and science. After clarifying altered states of perception, concepts of integrative wholeness of mind, body, soul and spirit and transformative shamanic 'healing' approaches, the book goes on to outline concrete contemporary tools and techniques that can be applied directly to work with clients. It presents research, examples and case studies throughout. This will be enlightening and compelling reading for psychologists, therapists, counsellors and coaches looking for profound insights and innovative methods of practice that cater for the whole human psyche, reaching beyond contemporary Western mind and body approaches.