by
Joseph Peters
| Mar 24, 2022
Welcome to the Voice of Counseling, presented by the American Counseling Association. This program is hosted by Dr. S Kent Butler. This week's episode is Spirituality and Religion in Counseling, and features Dr. Scott Young and Dr. Craig Cashwell.
Welcome to the Voice of Counseling from the American Counseling Association. I'm Dr. S Kent Butler. Joining us today are doctors, Craig S. Cashwell and J Scott Young, authors of "Integrating Spirituality And Religion Into Counseling Practice" in its third edition. Dr. Young is a professor within the Department of Counseling and Education Development and the Dean Fellow of Innovation for the School of Education at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He served as department chair from 2010 to 2018. Awards Dr. Young has received for his work include the American Counseling Association Fellow, the Notorious Service Award for the Association for Spiritual, Ethical and Religious Values in Counseling and the Administrator of the Year from the North Carolina Counseling Association.
Dr. Craig Cashwell is a professor in the counselor education program at William and Mary, where he coordinates the doctoral program. He has been a professional counselor for 31 years and an educator for 28. He is licensed in North Carolina as a clinical mental health counselor, and in Virginia as a licensed professional counselor. He also is a national certified counselor and approved clinical supervisor and life member of Chi Sigma Iota International, the honor society for professional counselors. In 2011, he was bestowed a fellow status within the American Counseling Association as well. So, welcome gentlemen, how are you? How is everything going with you all today?
Doing great. Thank you for those lovely introductions.
Thank you. It's good to talk with you all. I'm excited to talk with you about spirituality today and the book that you all put forward. Can you kind of talk a little bit about what inspired you two to get together and put this great work into the counseling atmosphere?
You want to take that one?
Yeah. This fall, we celebrated our 30th anniversary as friends. We met each other in our first doctoral course, actually we were doctoral students together, so we go way back. But really when we started, kind of, doing this work when we came together on the faculty at Mississippi State, so in 2002, I had been at Mississippi State and Scott joined me there and we were colleagues. And we started just, sort of, talking about our interest around religion and spirituality and how that shows up for clients in the work and how the spiritual work can be integrated with people's psychological growth. And so out of that, I think, we started out doing a study a year, we would come together in the fall and talk about what we were reading, what we were thinking about, and put together a study. And then out of that that just really kind of grew over the years, it's where we've collaborated on a substantial number of projects.
What was going on in that counseling world during that time, was that well received? And did you all like kind of jumpstart this spirituality piece in the counseling field?
Well, it's interesting, when we came into the world of counseling, I got invited to be a part of a servant, just to sort of check it out, I didn't know the Association for Spiritual, Ethical, Religion Values in Counseling. And at that time, they were just starting to talk about spirituality separate from religion, that maybe seems obvious today but 25 years ago it was just sort of a conversation that was happening and they were developing some competencies or talking about what do counselors need to know to practice well around spiritual issues if they emerged during counseling process. And so ASERVIC was interested and, as Craig said, we were already doing research together, and out of that, a conversation emerged, I guess in ASERVIC board meeting, and Craig sort of says, "Somebody ought to write a book where they kind of explain and talk through what the competent practice of this would look like." And so we kind of looked at each other and it was one of those moments like, "Gosh, we should do that." So I think that's the beginning of it.
So, this is how the book originally started, was with this conversation that you all had back then?
So, your book is now in the third edition, what's the process like of updating it? So, does religion or spirituality, I shouldn't say religion, but does spirituality change between the first and the third edition?
It's kind of funny, we're updating a book on things that have 1000s of years old in some cases, so... But the research does evolve, and I think that's been one of the biggest shifts that we see, and I think, maybe even more than that, is Scott and I continued... We both have part-time practices, so we do counseling work, we both do training in this area, we do supervision, so we continue, I think, to get more clear. So, for example, the third edition, we added a chapter on forgiveness work, that seemed really sort of a glaring of omission from previous editions, and a chapter on how did work within the client's belief system and integrate their, whatever they consider to be sacred text, because they're drawing from a body of text that they deem sacred, how to use that in the counseling process, towards the psychological goals of our clients.
So, it's actually been interesting, I remember working... When we started the second edition, we actually talked about changing the title of the book, because it felt like a different book because the revisions had been so substantial. In the end, the wisdom of the ACA staff was that making it an updated edition would sell better, so from a marketing standpoint, we stayed with the same name, but they've been pretty substantial updates each time. The second and third edition have really been pretty substantially updated.
What's your writing process like? What do you have to get into in order to become the spiritual gurus that you all are?
Oh, well, thank you. That's very kind. I hope we don't sound like we're spiritual gurus, I don't know. But I think what I would say about that is, I do think it's important that if one is interested in these sorts of topics, that you are quite aware of your own spiritual life and work, so, Craig and I are, both I think been on simultaneously our own journey around all these, personally as well as professionally. And I do think the work of your life is important here, so we're always reading, we're always meditating, participating in different trainings around this material. So, it is one of those you got to work on both sides, but when we get into the writing, I think it's sort of a "What has happened in the last five, eight years." or whatever period it might be, conversations at a higher level of conceptually what's emerging, kind of, on the leading edge of these conversations within our field. And we're always thinking about what does this mean for the person sitting in front of a client? What does it mean for practice, that's really what we're trying to speak to.
So I think out of those conversations and reviews, the literature conversations with other people that write, and imitations, "Hey, you seem to have some research going in this particular area, would you be willing to contribute to the text?" So-
So, let me ask you a question for a person who's not spiritual.
Yeah, I mean, I think part of what we lead with is that each person defines what this means and looks like for them, so every client does that as well. We, sort of, as academics, we really do kind of parse out spirituality and religion and we talk about them as typically, sort of, overlapping but distinct constructs. But for a lot of people, the overlap is complete, to think about their spiritual life outside of their religious life doesn't make any sense to them. And so we meet that client right there, their religious life is their spiritual life. For other people, they might be deeply spiritual, believe in something. For me, spirituality is really pretty simply defined as believing in something beyond yourself, there's something there. Whatever, whether that's a deity, whether that's a cause, whatever that might be, to me, that's a really sort of broad definition of spirituality. And obviously that doesn't always happen in context of organized religion for people. And-
But that's the thing, right? So a lot of times people connect spirituality to religion. And so what I'm hearing you say is that it's not necessarily connected to that, it's more about how you see the world, how you experience the world and how you connect to, maybe, a higher power or whatever you connect to in terms of how you see operating within this world or within your environment. So, when you reach somebody who says that, "Listen, I can't connect with you because I'm not coming from a spiritual place." What is the thing that can be done for a counseling student or from a counselor that's new to the profession or counselor who's been here for a while, to kind of be able to work with that person?
I think you're touching on a really important topic, first of all, because then I think there can be a tendency for people that are, sort of, not close to this topic to think, "Are they talking about Christian counseling? Are they talking about religion? Is that what this is about?" We're very clear, that is not the point, it's about meaning making, it's really about how do individuals make meaning of their life. I think it's more akin to a cultural facet of someone one's life, it's an identification with something. And it can look like, as Craig was saying, a lot of different things, it can look like religion, but it can very much not look like that at all. But some people, as you get into deeper conversations about the struggles in their life, if they have any sort of belief about how this all fits together, and you're in pain, because you're struggling in your life in some way, you start to ask those bigger questions of "Why is this happening? What does this mean?" If you have a God, "Where is God in all these?"
So, I think you have to meet, and I think Craig said it, you have to meet the individual, right where he or she is when they come into the work.
I like that. I think that's a really important way to look at it in some regards, because when you think about considering spirituality and religion with your clients, you are looking at finding ways that they find meaning, how they find purpose, how they find a way of coming to understand what's happening within their realm. So, that's a really nice way to kind of move into that. How do you help someone who is not familiar with communicating with people in this way to, kind of, support that counseling relationship?
Yeah. For me, I think a lot about... We talk a lot about cultural humility, and I think about the application of that in this case, that we can't possibly be experts on every particular belief system or wisdom, tradition, or way of being in the world that a client could bring in, but we can be humble in recognizing that our way is our way, it's not their way, and that the space that we walk into is a compassionate curiosity with clients. And that's true whether I don't... It's always interesting to me when Scott and I have taught courses on integrating spirituality into counseling, the students who are drawn to it typically are either historically, sort of, highly religious and trying to figure out how to have compassionate curiosity for people who are different, who have different belief systems in them, or they have no worldview around this and they know it's going to be important for clients and they want to figure out how to hold that space for people. So, they kind of come from two kind of different perspectives, but in both cases, they're wanting to get better, they appreciate the importance of meeting people where they are, and how to do that in a way that doesn't impose a particular belief system or values onto clients.
So, Craig, you just talked a little bit about cultural humility, can you kind of put it into context so people can kind of see what that actually means? Because I think sometimes people get it confused as to what you're really trying to say about someone when you're telling them to practice from that perspective. So, from your perspective in using it from maybe the spiritual realm, can you kind of talk a little bit about what that looks like?
Yeah. I suspect most educators and supervisors have worked with students in training who had a very strong personal belief system about what is true. And really the way that I always would say this is that our personal moral values do not supersede the ethics of the profession, a very clear ethical mandate not to impose values, and yet around issues of religion and spirituality there're so deeply held core beliefs that sometimes it's hard for, particularly, students and early professionals to understand how much damage they can do when they present a truth as the truth and start trying to impose that on clients. And so I think that recognizing that you certainly... I would argue, each person is entitled to their personal set of morals and values, they have to recognize that it's their set and it may be very different than that of the person sitting across from them. So, the space that we operate from is not our belief system, it's the client's belief system. And you have to honor that, and that requires some humbling of ourselves and our... I might even say it as a loosening of the rigidity of that belief system, because that's where we see, I think, a particular student struggle, is they just think "This is the truth and I have to speak the truth into this person.", that's dangerous territory from counseling standpoint.
So, that similar to when someone has biases and things along those lines as well, and how do you kind of work with that as well?
We're often, "Come speak with either one of us if you were taking a course or if you were getting clinical supervision." The place it has to start is, where are you as the counselor coming from? What are the assumptions you're making about spirituality and religion and what all these means? Because you'll also see the folks that are very much not religious and are a little bit, I don't mean to be critical, but can be almost a little hostile towards somebody that does hold a religious perspective and see it as antiquated and, kind of, naive or something. But the point is... You know what? With any other part of someone's life, we talk about their sex life, we talk about their trauma history, we talk about really personal things, and the point is not to sell a client on one perspective or the other, is to understand what it means within the context of this person's life. So, it's curiosity, it's getting curious together with the client, "Help me understand how this fits for you."
So, I like that in terms of the curiosity piece, but what happens when you talk with a student and they're "Well, I was told we can't never ask those kind of questions, that I can't talk about those things." How do you come around that type of perspective?
Actually, I have a really applied way that I talk about this, I encourage, I do trainings and things. In my intake paperwork I have two questions, just two questions, one of them is, how important is religion/spirituality to you? It's a scale, five point scale. The second question is, is religion/spirituality something you want to talk about in counseling? Yes, no? And just those two very simple questions embedded in the midst of a much longer document gives me a wealth of information, because some people will scratch through one of the two words, religion or spirituality, and that's information, right? Like they're saying of those terms doesn't sit well with them.
And then there are clients who will circle a five, the highest number is very important, and they'll circle yes, they want it to be brought in the room, and you bring it right into the room in an intake session, in a first session, they're saying, "This matters to me, it's a part of my identity, I want to talk about it." But then other people will circle, I want to know, and you do counseling, you don't bring up this spiritual or religious dimension, it's not important, it's not necessarily a part of their identity. They're there for anxiety or depression and what have you, we're going to go to work on that at a purely psychological level, because that's what they're saying they want. So I think that just from the very outset creating space for this, but not imposing it, and first asking the client what they want around this, that's the key, and then adjusting our work accordingly. So, the danger zone would be, "I value the spiritual life, so whether you want to talk about it or not, I'm going to bring it up." And that can be off putting and really damage the relationship with that client.
So, not making it a mandate but bringing it into the room anyway so that people can kind of understand it's there and it's available if they should want to move that direction. So, when you have somebody who feels like there's a disconnect between understanding what spirituality is and what religion is, and then they're, "Well, I don't know a lot about religion, I don't know a lot about the Bible." or whatever have you, and they start to kind of lean towards that and not understand the full picture of what spirituality is, how do you combat that? How do you work within those circles with students especially?
So, let me make sure I understand your question, Kent, you're asking if some student is "I don't care much about religion personally so-
"I never went to church and I don't know anything about the Bible and I don't know anything about any of these other things, so can you kind of tell me how I can become more spiritual?"
Yeah. Well, first of all, I would say, I think there's a lot of people that are going into graduate counseling programs, we know that millennials just culturally are leaving churches, that's not more and more young adults, that's just not the way they do it. But that doesn't mean they're not asking the questions of what does all this mean and why am I here? What's the purpose and all that kind of stuff, they're just not doing it inside of that traditional religious context. But if somebody's "I don't really know a lot about religion.", I think that goes back perfectly to the earlier part of this conversation when it's "Okay, great."
So a client walks in and they say they're, sort of, culturally Jewish, they're Jewish by culture, they did some of the pieces of that as a child, it's never been a central part of their life maybe, well, I don't know what all that's going to mean for that person, but I could be really inquisitive around, "Tell me how you think about that client. What does Judaism mean to you now? This place in your life, are there values there or is there an ethical kind of guide that you notice in that makes sense to you as you think about your life?" I would even say it like this, a client that walks in and says "I'm sort of an atheist. I don't really think these stuff matters." "All right. Cool. That's great. And how do you make decisions about what's important to you in your life?", you still have a framework that we should treat people ethically, that we should be honest, or whatever this person says matters. I would start right there.
When I'm listening to you, I also thinking about it from the multicultural and counseling perspectives where one of the things is, that you learn from the person who's sitting across from you, you're not expected to know everything, we can't know everything about every person, every intersectionality that's out there. So, you learn from the person that's there, and it's more about knowing how to ask appropriate questions without letting your bias get in the way. And so, that's kind of what students can do to kind of work through that. So one of the questions that I wanted to ask you all is, what are some ways to foster protective factors that are drawn from a client's spiritual, religious beliefs?
Yeah. There's actually a really good body of literature on religious coping, and with the idea that it can be both positive and negative. So, one of the things that when a client comes in with a religious or spiritual world view, I think one of the things that we're listening for as counselors is, I don't ask about this initially, but how is that connected to whatever their psychological symptomology is? So, for example, if they have an image of a higher power, that's a very judgemental or unavailable, or they have some sort of projection onto their higher power, and we often know that's a projection of the family of origin, so if your guardians or parents aren't available for you, guess that's what your image of God tends to be. And out of that projection, you feel abandoned, you feel left and you have a lot of anxiety around that. So, we're listening for that connection.
If you ask the questions too early, "How does your religious and spiritual world view impact your depression, anxiety?" What have you, we run the risk of inadvertently, sort of, shaming or pathologizing their religion and we don't want to do that, and be really cautious about that. But I'm listening for that, what's the interplay? They believe in a higher power, do they believe that higher power is accessible to them, responsive to them, engaged with them in this beautiful kind of dance? Or the client feels abandoned because "I'm such a horrible, terrible person that God has turned away from me." So, we're listening for that kind of language. And that's where the integration piece can kind come in.
I would just add to that quickly, and it's sort of implied in what he was saying, is looking for the places that their spiritual perspective is helpful to them. Where does it bring comfort, peace, meaning, soothing? And, sort of, helping them to notice that. When you talk about it this way, it seems to be really a benefit to you, so are there ways that you can draw upon that as you're going through this difficult period?
So, one thing I think I know about you, Craig, is that you like nature, I think you're out there in it, and I'm thinking it rubs off on you too Scott, being around him for 30 plus years at this point. When you are one with nature, and I think that kind of ties to your spiritual beliefs and the things that you're are going through in life, how do you use those experiences to help draw students and others who are kind of novice to this kind of atmosphere or thinking to kind of come to understand that? Because I think a lot of times people think that people are religious kooks or they're this, or they're that, and all these other things, but to be one with nature and to be one with the environment, it really says something. And a lot of times, many people are already doing those things, but they don't even know how to classify it or put it into context. And so, can you kind of talk about it from that perspective of... When you are out in nature and you're enjoying nature and you're able to start to think and process, and things along those lines, what are some of the things that are going on for you and how do you get there?
Yeah. So, the part where I think about that, as an academic I think too much, and I get reinforced for thinking too much sometimes, so part of being out in nature for me are these ideas that are very connected to my spirituality and very congruent with my religious beliefs, that I'm grounded, I'm connected to the earth. And you said, one with sure, that's a beautiful way to say that Kent, everything is connected. So, I'm not disconnected from the trees or the water, or I walk up on a deer in the woods, that just happened to me a couple of days ago and just... The deer and I sat there, looked at each other for a while and just made eye contact and just looked at each other, place of woods, there can't be predators because this deer was not scared of me at all. And we just had this connection, I just felt this moment of connection with this deer, it was a beautiful thing.
And so it's just that recognition that I'm grounded, I'm present, I'm in the present moment I'm not thinking about the next thing, I'm not thinking about a project that I need to work on, there's nothing but that moment. And then to me, that's the most deeply spiritual space where I do have a belief in a higher power, that high language is God. And I would say that is where I encounter God, is in those moments of pure presence. There's nothing in the past, there's nothing in the future, there's just that moment. And for me, it's ultimately kind of an experience of mindfulness that connects me both to myself, to my deepest self and to my higher power.
And Scott you can answer this too, being in nature, does it support or really enable you to start writing? Like when you talk about writing this book, and being in third edition, does being in nature help inspire some of that as well?
That's interesting. I haven't quite thought about it that way, but I think what I do notice, and maybe this would be helpful for someone listening, is to understand that connection to something that you can definitely tap into when you're out in the natural world, that is the first religion of every indigenous group, right? Richard Rohr, who's a Franciscan that we both study under some, he always says that the first Bible was creation, that it was all revealed in this, this actual creation of what is happening right here. And most people can have the experience, sometime with sitting on a mountain, watching the sun go down, you have that little "oh my gosh," a moment, something shifts, and "this is amazing," or you see the stars at night and you see, "I am so small in the face of whatever all this is." And that's actually a stage of consciousness or a shift of consciousness where you go from the individual to the universal, and that is a spiritual opening in that moment. Well, most people can have that and never get it confused with religion and all the stuff that goes along with, so to your point, I think everyone has these spiritual experiences, they just may not label them as such.
So, one of the things that you're saying makes me think too, is how someone comes to their own understanding. Now, you know yours and what you need to you go through in order to kind of get to maybe your Zen or wherever it is that you're going to be, there are a lot of people who, especially as students, they are seeking your guidance, "I'm not getting it right. I'm not doing it correctly, help me get there." But how do you help someone understand that their process is their process, and that how they come to their own spiritual growth is through actually living life? And how do you get them to do that without worrying about being graded down because they're taking a course on spirituality?
Well, yeah, that's a great question. Sometimes it's always interesting now, as Scott and I have been doing this for close to 30 years, that students want to compare themselves, first semester master students, to us now, that's just not a fair comparison. We talk all the time about how much easier it is now to be a counselor than it was at the beginning, we just feel more comfortable in our own skin, we've done our own work, we've been studying this for decades now. So, helping people understand it is a developmental journey, so I will often self disclose how much I struggled as a student, I will talk about how difficult this was for me. I'm a first generation college student so I talk a lot about the imposter syndrome and just how loud that was for me early on, because I want to normalize and validate those experiences. So, the me you see now, it's a work in process.
And so I find that those kind of vulnerable shares, those kind of more vulnerable disclosures, are maybe the most important thing that I can do, because the projection, somebody looks at my CV and says, "Oh, you have all these publications." "Well, yes, and I've got a drawer full of rejected manuscripts." Some of which were horrible ideas that never took off and there are many epic fails in my career, and that's the only way I've had any successes. And so I like to try to balance all of that out, in terms of sharing with people, "What a journey that springs from, what an absolute journey.
Right. I can attest that there haven't been that many epic fails there, Dr. Cashwell-
They don't broadcast those.
You or your partner there, really good work. And I think that's a really great spot for us to kind of maybe take a break and maybe contemplate vulnerability though, I think that is definitely something that adds to the luster of being a counselor, is allowing yourself to be vulnerable. This is the Voice of Counseling, this is Dr. S. Kent Butler and we'll be back in a moment.
Counselors help positively impact lives by providing support, wellness, treatment. We're working to change lives. We are creating a world where every person has access to the quality professional counseling and mental health services needed to thrive.
Welcome back to the Voice of Counseling, this is Dr. S. Kent Butler, I'm here with doctors Cashwell and Young, and we're talking about what it means to be vulnerable in a space with your clients. And so, I want to throw to you Dr. Young, to talk a little bit about maybe how you see coming to your own vulnerable self in a counseling relationship.
Yeah. I mean, it's a good question. I have sometimes had clients ask me about my own spiritual life or some aspect of that or religious life, and generally we're thinking that we're not here to talk about ourselves, we're here to talk about the client and their concerns. But I think there are times when our willingness to be transparent about our journey around some of these things, if clients are curious about that, certainly only if they're curious about that can be helpful.
But something that might be helpful for a listener to understand, is that wherever a client happens to be, if they show up questioning and struggling with religion and spirituality, if they show up having this real traditional sort of religious upbringing in life, if they're angry about it, whatever it might be, it is well documented in the literature that there is a developmental process, an arc that people go through across the lifespan around spirituality and religion, if they're at all having that conversation. And some of those early stages, if you see young adults and they're quite questioning whatever they were taught, trying to figure it out for themselves, perhaps rejected the spiritual tradition that they grew up in, that is a very normal, appropriate, developmental thing for a person to be doing. And that includes their spiritual life, that they're, "I don't know that I believe this the way it was taught to me." So you meet them right there and help them make sense out of the struggle.
Let me ask you a question, this is me being vulnerable maybe in a little bit of... So, I grew up in a Baptist church, then changed over to a nondenominational piece. Have not necessarily seen religion as the strong suit, but very spiritual, and very much in belief that there is a God that I serve. But I haven't necessarily found myself always going to the brick and mortar of a church. Perhaps people struggle with that, and I'm wondering, what would you say to someone who might be in that space? Because I often find myself in that, "Did I not go to church enough or did I not do this enough? Am I raising my daughter correctly enough to have her understand what it is to be in touch with that spirit?" Because people are always saying, touch and agree and be here and do this and do that and you should have fellowship with these individuals and things along those lines, but are there other ways that you can still be a good person, and know that you're living a just life? That makes sense.
And there are a lot of people who are very active in organized religion who are not good people, they're not kind people in the world. If there was a perfect correlation, there would be an easy answer to the question but... If I were sitting with you Kent, if you were a client and brought that into the room, I would just be curious about that, how is that... So there's a little bit of maybe some guilt that bubbles up there, and I would just be curious about whether that's guilt that is informing something that you might want to do differently, or is that just an old script, that's an old schema that was kind of externally handed to you that you've taken on a little bit? So I would just be curious about that with you because that's one of the... I think there is much that is wonderful about organized religion, and one of the shadow pieces of religion is that it can create a lot of shame and guilt if it's toxic. And so I would just be curious about that with you, where those messages came from and how you are thinking about them, trying to help you slow that down and really touch your experience, your truth around that, because ultimately that's where the answers are going to come from.
Yeah. I would say that there's a lot of things that... I mean, I'm not going to get into a personal story here, but there are lot of things about organized religion that has really put me at bay, in terms of how I see people operating within that system. And so that really makes sense. Are there other examples that you all don't mind sharing of maybe your work with clients who may have had a negative religious experience or struggled with their faith?
Yeah. There's one that comes to mind for me, a client I've been working with, strangely, it's been four or five years now, it's been a long-term client, but he started very slowly to engage, he was very distressful in the process. But when I met him, super depressed, really, really depressed, one of the most depressed people I've ever seen as a client. He'd grown up in a religious background, and was just over it, he was hurt by it, he felt it didn't answer the of questions, he felt, you might say, betrayed, "I tried to do everything right, follow all the expectations, so to speak, and I feel like, I guess you could say, sort of abandoned by God in a way." And I could tell he was... If I had brought in a lot of spiritual religious language or tried to encourage him back toward that, man, he would've bristled, it would've been very inappropriate.
So, we have just worked for all these years on his abusive father, he is really difficult for him, his own depression, his relationship with his wife, all of those kind of things. And I noticed over the last, about the last six or eight months, he started bringing religious language back. He said something one day and I thought... I just didn't say anything but it's, "Huh, he just quoted a little bit of scripture, that's interesting." I'd never heard him say that before. And I thought maybe that's just a one off, and then he did it again, another session, a few things, and so after a while I said, "Just checking in, you sound to me like you're talking about your spiritual life now in a way that I've never heard you talk about it before." He was like, "Yeah man, it's weird, it's like it's coming back. It's coming back." And I said, "Tell me more."
The conversation began by working on the trauma and the pain that was right there in the room, and helping him process through that, he got enough healing to where he could go back to what had been the, sort of, foundation that he grew up in, but not with the same negativity, and he was finding the meaning again that had been there. So, I'm saying that to say you don't have to just go straight at the spiritual religious to actually help, but it's all connected, right?
They're connected. Nice. How about you Craig? Anything coming from you? Yeah.
Yeah. One example that I think about a lot, because this was just so poignant, I was co-leading a group years ago, it was a men's group, and the men sort of spontaneously started sharing sort of how their spiritual life was impacting, positively and negative, their psychological struggles or challenges in life, the developmental challenges. We came to one of the men in the group, they sort of spontaneously started doing it in the round and came to one person in the group and he said, "Yeah, I used to pray every day but, I don't pray anymore." And then he looked to the person beside, the universal symbol of "I'm done next," and my co-facilitator and I were both like "Well, hang on just a second, I used to pray every day, now I don't anymore. Can we just ask you a little bit more about that?" What he ultimately shared was a passage of a sacred text, he's Christian, taken out of the Psalms, out of context as sometimes happens, that said that God does not hear the prayers of the unjust or sometimes translated as the wicked, and he had so much shame about some things that he had done, he was in early recovery from addiction, that he felt "Why pray? Because I'm hopeless, I'm lost."
Well, we processed that a little bit in the group, but I had signed consent to talk to his individual counselor, which I did, and shared some of that with him. And in unpacking that a little bit, what we came to is, when he was four years old, his father abruptly left the family, that was his experience of it, anyway, as a four year old, and he had just gotten in trouble the day before. So, he literally had this childhood memory of, "I was bad and my father went away and he had a very masculine image of God, so now I'm so bad that God is going away." It was this recapitulation of some early trauma for him. And his individual, that was more work in his individual counseling, but he really... You could see the transformative work that came out of that. So, it was like the example Scott gave, very much like that, it was this early trauma that was impacting, not only his psychological function, but his religious and spiritual life as well.
Yeah. Can you guys talk a little bit about that? Because wounds do run deep, right? And a lot of times people don't want to touch them, and it does take a minute to kind of get to it, especially in counseling, but what do counselors need to really pay attention to, to get to the wounds? How do you open that up so that you can unpack, so to speak, some of the things that have happened in someone's life?
Well, I think we both say slowly, you have to have safety, you have to have trust in relationship. I mean, we know this, but I see it every time that I'm working with somebody, nothing happens in counseling work until there's enough psychological safety, that I'm sure you're going to be there for me in a way that I can trust. So, I would say that. This is me, as like Craig, like a 30-year therapist now, we've done this work for a really long time, but there is always a logic I would say to sort of the subconscious processes in people. So, if they're saying, "I don't want to talk about that." or you can feel that, there's a reason for that, and you need to honor that they're not ready for that yet, "It isn't safe enough for me to open that up." But I also help them understand there's a lot of energy around that, whatever that topic is, we're going to need to touch it when you're ready, but you get to decide and you tell me when you feel... I'll bring it up or bridge that with you at times, but you tell me when you feel ready to go there. So, I think there's that.
I think there's helping people feel the capacity, the sort of psychological capacity to hold those really difficult things, so you teach them how to ground, you teach them how to sooth themselves, you teach them how to shift some of the narrative that they're creating about their life, and all that prepares them for it. A quick example, I had a client who... A different client that I've been working with for a while, who had a lot of early loss, her father died when she was really young, six years old, freaked her out, I mean, they didn't process it well, it doesn't seem, as a family. So, she couldn't understand how he just sort of disappeared, it's like that "This core figure in my life suddenly evaporated and I don't understand, emotionally and psychologically, what happened." So a six year old-
Nobody talked about it and nobody's letting me understand it.
Exactly. So, no formal operational thinking, it was just sort of, "I don't understand." Then when she was 23, the love of her life, her fiance died in a car crash, evaporated. Two, three years later, her best friend, suicide, evaporated. A couple years later, her grandmother, who was an important figure, died.
So she had all this trauma around loss, and it was both like she needed to talk about it but was so painful. I mean, she would literally, for a year, she would come into counseling and one day she'd be talking in a very normal way, like you do, another session she would walk in and go, "I don't know why but I felt scared of you," me, I was "Really, say more about that. What are you aware of?"" I don't know, it doesn't make sense, but I'm just... I feel this anxiety when... Coming in this room scares me." It's like, "Okay, well, let's just sit right there with that, hold that, know whatever you can about it, and what do you need me to do? Do you need me to move away from you? Do you need me to talk in a different way?" So you have to be right on the edge of what that person's experiencing, but all that has led to, Kent, a recovery of her spiritual life because God was part of what... "I don't know that I trust this universe where things can disappear so quickly and hurt me so badly," and this woman's in her '60s by the way, so this has been going on for forever for her.
So, let me ask you a question in a different way. You talk about your years of experience being in the room and doing this work, there are people who are new to this and are not necessarily understanding, so I get it from the perspective that you just brought it in, it takes time, but sometimes people walk into the room and the very first day they're ready to kind of unleash a bunch of information on you that you're just maybe not prepared for or ready for, how do you work with that? How do you help a new counselor perhaps understand that someone might be ready to kind of get there and you're of the mindset that, "Okay, let's slow this down. Let's hold back." What do you do in those situations?
The first thing that comes to mind for me, Kent, is, everything that Scott was just talking about in terms of the skills that we might teach clients, and self-regulating, we need to develop those skills as well, because yes, we have some stories that come at us that catch us self guard, and I certainly can get dysregulated in a counseling session at times and we have to be able to use our own regulation strategies in that moment because it's not about us. The thing I say to students all the time, it's not about you in that moment. Now you might need to do some work in supervision and your own counseling, and whatever, to deal with something that you hear in the room and will need to do that, but in that moment, in that space with that person, it's not about you, and so you have to be able to show up for them. That's probably the most important thing that comes to mind for me.
And you probably tell people some version of this, I think when the client, like you said Kent, just comes in with a lot that the new counselor will often feel like, "Oh my gosh, I've got to fix all of this. I got to make all these better." I think what you actually learned is "No, you don't have to make it all better, but open your heart and be compassionate toward the story of pain that is falling out of this person, and just meet them right there and hold it with them" walk away and they're going to feel what they're going to feel, they may not be better today.
I like that, Scott, you said, "Hold it with them, hold it with them and not try to fix it, but be there for them in that moment." And that's really a hardened thing to navigate as a new person coming in, and maybe even as a older, more sage counselor is probably the same thing. Let me switch gears just a little bit and ask you all, can you talk a little bit about how a counselor can conceptualize or address the current social climate, and the things that are going on? A lot of the things that are happening have spiritual or religious themes to them, and so how do you address those things in the counseling room?
Very carefully. I wrestle with this issue, I think it's a great question, can I wrestle with this? In a first session, maybe I hear a client say something that I hear as being a bias or a stereotype or something like that, I'm always wrestling with what to do with that, because as somebody who feels compassion for all people or strives to, and I don't always look in that space, but that's aspirational for me, can I let that stereotypical statement pass without commenting on it? But I also know a lot about the therapeutic alliance and how fragile that is in those early stages. So I wrestle with this all the time, and if I knew how to stick the landing, I would tell you exactly how I think about that. But I think it's a moment to moment thing for me.
And so, one of the things that Scott and I talk about a lot is in those developmental models of spiritual development. One of the things that organically happens naturally happens is a movement to non-dualism, that there's not a me and you, there's us, and that everything is connected. And in that space, as people move into those developmental spaces, I think at a spiritual level that's where some of their psychological biases and stereotypes and preconceptions start to fall away, we recognize that we're all human beings struggling to have these... These spiritual beings having a human experience as it is sometimes said, and what we feel is compassion for the other rather than judgment. So if I don't understand something about you, my first impulse is one of compassion and curiosity, not of judgment. So I think that othering kind of goes away. And I think that's a huge piece of this that I think... I don't think we talked about really well, that as we cultivate mindfulness, as we culture and cultivate non-dualism, then it really... It's a very slow process, but it is a way to start moving the needle on some of these social issues.
Yeah. One, just a piggyback on that, I like what Craig was saying there on the very concrete level... There are clients that walk in, we're in the south, there are clients that walk in with these very traditional, very conservative worldviews, I can hold compassion for the idea that they believe some of those things, because that is actually a stage of consciousness where it's very much about my group, my safety, my control, and I want things to stay the way they are. I always think about this in a very, very simple way, I'm sure conservatism is sort of like preserving the past, preserving what I think works and gives me control. The more progressive worldview in a simple, simple way is about everyone belongs and everyone matters. But even in the literature, which is I find is so interesting, people that move into the pluralistic stage, which we as counselors generally advocate for and say, "This is a better way to see the world," can be very, very judgmental toward people that are at that one stage back, which is that more conservative place.
So, I think a place even beyond that is how do I hold compassion for all of it? People can be progressive but be mean about that, people can be conservative and be mean about that, how do you hold love for it all? Because the truth of it is, this is going on all over the world. It's happening in Europe, it's happening throughout the world, that these tensions are rising up between the old and the new. And it's trying to break through into something bigger, I think, than either of those two places, that we are interlocking systems that connect together. And we need to like sit with people, as Craig said, in an angle space of, "That's where they are and you got to love them there to help them grow, you won't get there by judging them."
That's a lot right there. I want to thank both of you for just taking the time out to kind of share this perspective, I don't think that we'll talk enough about it and open, and it's like a hush hush thing sometimes, that someone talks about spirituality and things along those lines. And so you all have done richly by it, and so I appreciate your words of wisdom. I'm going to ask you all, just maybe very briefly, because our time is up, what gives you hope?
I love that question. I think about my time and as a client with a really good EMRD therapist and he would get to that point where he would ask me about my positive cognition, what would you like to believe instead of the negative cognition? It was a running joke for us that my answer was always the saying, "It's okay." So, for me, there's this deep sense of peace that it's okay. When I'm at my best, it's okay. When I'm at my worst, it's okay. When I make mistakes, it's okay. So, there's just this sense for me of everything belongs, that really gives me both hope and peace, day to day, and I don't live there all the time, but I think it's part of my journey, I get to hang out there a little bit more that I once did.
And I'll try to say it really quickly. What gives me hope is that I see that transformation is possible. I see it in clients' lives, I see it in my own life, and I can see it slowly, slowly happening in our world.
Thank you, gentlemen, so much, for being a part of today's podcast, phenomenal words of wisdom that you shared, something to grow on for sure. This has been the Voice of Counseling, I'm Dr. S. Kent Butler from the American Counseling Association, thank you for being with us today and we'll see you next time.
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