Spiritual Psychotherapy
Spiritual psychotherapy is not a religious psychotherapy. There is a difference between religious – based on a particular faith – and spiritual, which is not bound by a particular religion and concern the issues of meaning, finding sense in a world of struggle and discontent. Spiritual Psychotherapy will help you to reduce and clear many difficult emotions, such as anger, sadness, and grief. It will help you to function from a place of loving kindness and compassion to yourself and others.
What Is Spiritual Psychotherapy?
Spirituality becomes more and more important in many people’s lives, particularly as they grow up and mature. As we get older, we may begin to question the spiritual beliefs that we were taught as a child, and strike out to solidify our own set of beliefs. Also as we get older, we may find that we’ve gotten lost as we tread down our spiritual path and find ourselves in need of guidance. Although the term “spiritual therapy” might bring to mind images of bible toting priests or meditating yoga masters, I don’t follow one specific religious or spiritual path, like Christianity or Buddhism. Instead, I incorporate the teachings of several different religions or spiritual traditions into my spiritual therapy practice.
For some, spirituality does not relate to any kind of belief, but relates more to how they live their life, and their outlook on the world. It can be a path that will lead them towards an awareness of themselves that transcends the day-to-day problems, circumstances, and attitudes. The main goal of Spiritual Psychotherapy is to open the heart and develop the capacity to experience compassion. Spirituality involves experiences of a deeper sense of meaning and purpose in life, and a sense of belonging and a connection with other people and the world. Spirituality can help to achieve inner peace and happiness.
At the same time, existential questions related to freedom and the search for meaning inevitably open up spiritual issues. Whenever a person faces an existential crisis or a close encounter with death, spiritual concerns tend to surface. Thus spiritual psychotherapy addresses such life’s deepest questions and has to profoundly change a person’s core values and beliefs. In the process of Spiritual Psychotherapy the focus is not on discipline and obedience to the therapist/teacher, but on purification of intentions, sincerity of heart, and forgiveness. Such therapeutic work can be accompanied by the activity that reinforces individuality, personal choice, and ego strength as essential basis of true selflessness. Spiritual Psychotherapy is where spiritual discipline meets personal responsibility, and is based on the premise that the demands of our living conditions in the world give us the necessary material for our spiritual development.