Spiritually Oriented Psychotherapy For Trauma

Trauma can impact people not only psychologically, socially, and physically, but spiritually as well. Recent clinical research has shown that psychotherapists working with traumatized clients can foster better outcomes if they exercise sensitivity to their clients' spiritual needs. This book addresses a wide range of different client presenting problems, with a specific focus on relational forms of trauma, such as sexual abuse, partner violence, and other familial forms of trauma. It includes case studies that highlight how to assess and help clients process these and other types of trauma, including war and natural disasters. The case studies illustrate multiple facets of spirituality rather than explaining it as merely a source of anxiety reduction, social connectedness, or control. Readers will learn how to differentiate between healthy and unhealthy forms of spirituality, and how to apply spiritually-oriented practices within their own setting, theoretical framework, and unique client populations. They will also learn how to work with the ethical challenges and dilemmas trauma treatment can pose to the therapist's competence and world view. Recent years have brought broader awareness and openness to talking about child abuse and other traumatic life events. Survivors of these events often experience spiritual struggles in the course of healing; likewise, in helping clients process trauma, therapists too may come to question why evil exists or why so many people suffer. This book offers practical and reassuring guidance for performing therapy in these situations.

A survey of how spirituality can be incorporated into a range of psychotherapeutic approaches, including psychoanalytic, cognitive-behavioral, humanistic, interpersonal, transpersonal, and others.

From a leading researcher and practitioner, this volume provides an innovative framework for understanding the role of spirituality in people's lives and its relevance to the work done in psychotherapy. It offers fresh, practical ideas for creating a spiritual dialogue with clients, assessing spirituality as a part of their problems and solutions, and helping them draw on spiritual resources in times of stress. Written from a nonsectarian perspective, the book encompasses both traditional and nontraditional forms of spirituality. It is grounded in current findings from psychotherapy research and the psychology of religion, and includes a wealth of evocative case material.

Trauma represents a spiritual or religious violation for many survivors. This book describes how to promote healthy healing and meaning-making in clients with a history of trauma.

With extensive experience treating complex trauma, Heather Gingrich and Fred Gingrich have brought together key essays representing the latest psychological research on trauma from a Christian integration perspective. This text introduces counseling approaches, trauma information, and Christian reflections for students, instructors, clinicians, and researchers alike.

"Written with great clarity and intelligence, this book will be of benefit to all mental health practitioners, students of psychology, and those seeking a better understanding of their own process of psychological and spiritual transformation." —Tara Brach, PhD, Author of Radical Acceptance and True Refuge "In this wonderful book, Rick Johnson weaves together different theoretical perspectives in a way that welcomes religion, spirituality, and nature into the counseling and psychotherapy process. It's a delight to read Dr. Johnson's approach—an approach that teaches therapists how to empathically explore spirituality as an important dimension of human existence." —John Sommers-Flanagan, PhD, coauthor of Counseling and Psychotherapy Theories in Context and Practice and Clinical Interviewing "Rick Johnson's book Spirituality in Counseling and Psychotherapy is a rich introduction to the varied forms in which spiritual suffering enters the consulting room, the range of theories which address or fail to address this need, and specific attitudes and practices through which therapists can provide a non-doctrinal but open encounter with the spiritual needs of their clients." —James Hollis, PhD, Jungian analyst, and author of fourteen books, among them What Matters Most: Living a More Considered Life A practical integration of psychology and spirituality that builds upon existing psychological theories While many clients want spiritual and philosophical issues to be addressed in therapy, many mental health professionals report that they feel ill-equipped to meet clients' needs in this area. Providing a model that is approachable from a variety of theoretical orientations, Spirituality in Counseling and Psychotherapy supports therapists in becoming open to the unique ways that clients define, experience, and access life-affirming, spiritual beliefs and practices. Drawing on the author's research into spiritual issues as well as predictors of clients' psychological health, this reflective book presents an integrative approach to discussing the topic of spirituality. An essential resource for mental health professionals of all spiritual and religious persuasions, Spirituality in Counseling and Psychotherapy discusses: Client-defined spirituality Integrating spirituality with psychological theories Why clients become spiritually lost Practical steps for spiritual health and abundance in therapy Helping clients reclaim their real self How spiritually oriented therapy helps Guidance for therapists in differentiating their spirituality from their clients' to foster a more successful therapeutic relationship Filled with numerous cases and stories illustrating how spirituality can be a natural and beneficial part of the therapeutic process, Spirituality in Counseling and Psychotherapy enables mental health professionals to nonjudgmentally invite a collaborative exploration of the role of spirituality in their clients' lives.

In this book, therapists are urged to take into account the existence of spiritual aspects of personality, both in terms of making proper assessments and more focused treatment plans for people under their care. Although addressing itself chiefly to art therapists, the thrust of the text is an attempt to sensitize all clinical practitioners to the spiritual dimensions of therapy. By drawing on sources in the literature of religion, psychodynamics, systems theory, sociology, art, and ethics, the author lays a foundation for discovering and measuring clients’ spiritual sensibilities and search for personal meaning of their relationship to God. Chapter 1 discusses the evolution of the book and how the author embarked upon the inclusion of the spiritual dimension in assessment and treatment. Chapter 2 reviews the literature that encircles art therapy, mental health, and spirituality and explores its impact. Chapter 3 examines the Belief Art Therapy Assessment (BATA). Chapter 4 highlights the interviews and use of the BATA with clergy, while Chapter 5 explores its use with a “normal” adult artist population. Chapter 6 looks at spiritual art therapy with emotionally disturbed children and youth in residential treatment. Chapter 7 offers a case vignette of spiritual art therapy with a suicidal anorectic bulimic. Chapter 8 summarizes the author’s position and theosophy, while Chapter 9 examines the use of phototherapy as a means to investigate mourning and loss issues. The final chapter explores humankind’s search for inner and outer meaning after the tragedy of September 11. In addition to art therapists, this unique book will be useful to mental health workers, social workers, educational therapists, pastoral counselors, psychologists, psychiatrists, and other creative arts therapists.

The authors argue that when psychotherapists diagnose and assess their clients, they should routinely assess the religious and spiritual values of their clients to obtain a fuller and more accurate diagnostic picture. This book is the first to provide guidance for integrating a theistic spiritual strategy into mainstream approaches to psychotherapy in order to reach a large, underserved population of clients with religious and spiritual beliefs.

A Single Case Research Design (SCRD) with a multiple-baseline across participants was used to investigate the effects Spiritually Oriented Cognitive Processing Therapy-Cognitive (SOCPT-C) had on spiritual struggle, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) scores and depression in four Christian sexual assault survivors with PTSD reporting spiritual struggle. A complex reciprocal relationship between spiritual struggle and PTSD is suggested in the literature as influencing posttraumatic adjustment and treatment for Christian trauma survivors. Many empirically supported treatments (EST) for PTSD lack spiritual interventions to directly target effects from this relationship. Individuals completed an online pre-screening evaluation and an assessment was scheduled with those meeting inclusion criteria. Staggered treatment occurred in the counseling setting and included either (1) Cognitive Processing Therapy-Cognitive (CPT-C) or (2) SOCPT-C, a spiritually modified version of CPT-C. Data was collected through continuous assessment with two sessions weekly for eight weeks. Visual analysis was conducted through examining data patterns related to (1) level, (2) trend, (3) variability, (4) immediacy of the effect, (5) overlap and (6) consistency of data patterns across similar phases. Results indicated change was often gradual with no rapid shift and mixed treatment effects. The study findings indicated SOCPT-C was an effective intervention for decreasing spiritual struggle and PTSD. For depression scores, results were mixed and inconclusive for both interventions and their influences. Future research that evaluates the effects an EST inclusive with spiritual interventions have on the identified reciprocal relationship remains are indicated.