Integrating Spirituality into Counselling
Therapist’s Views and Experiences
Keywords:
spirituality in psychotherapy, therapists, spiritual ingredients, therapeutic healingAbstract
The role of spirituality in psychotherapy has received growing attention in the last two decades. The focus is on understanding the ways that spirituality relates to therapists, clients, and treatment methods. This paper explores the therapist’s views and experience on spiritual ingredients in counselling, keeping in mind the Indian context and experience. The participants were mental health professionals from different backgrounds with 15 to 30 years of experience. It was a qualitative study and a semi structured interview schedule was used. In this study, thematic analysis was used for analysing the data. Themes and concepts were formulated for each interview transcribed and an analysis undertaken. The main themes that emerged were: the views and experiences of mental health professionals about the use of spiritual ingredients in counselling, role of spirituality in counselling, healing process and well-being. Therapists consider the
approach of spirituality as a key ingredient in the whole phenomenon of therapeutic healing.
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