The spiritually sensitive counsellor will be available to clients having examined their own ties to voices which dictate beliefs, dogma and moral imperatives. Spiritually centred relationships demand openness in a unique way. In order to be completely open in the moment we need to track the inhibitors embedded in our psyche. We are searching for the truth about us.
This is quite different from any external truth proposed by religious dogma. While we can never discover the whole truth about ourselves because it does not present in the mind’ s eye as a total picture, we can sense when we are resisting, avoiding or having an internal psychic argument. If there is a struggle to be spiritual it lies in the struggle to accept what we decide is the truth about us. If the truth about ourselves is denied we cannot be available to our clients spiritually. Counsellors have often been told they need to resolve their own issues but it is seldom suggested they need to know the psychic truth about themselves which is quite a different matter. I use the phrase ‘psychic truth’ deliberately. The psyche claims a wider view than views found in psychological language or in spiritual guides. Psychological language depends on frameworks and summaries of the way people think, act and live together. It doesn’t address the uniqueness of individuality or unique patterns in each person’ s conscious or unconscious mind. Spiritual guides have a tendency to begin with a premise followers need to accept before they are lead to the inevitable conclusions. Psychic truth, on the other hand, permits individual insight, unproven belief, imagination, wish fulfillment and visits from ancestors. It is the stuff dreams are made of and a foundation for creativity. It is a perspective which mirrors possibility and reflects it back to the curious mind. There are important debates in scientific and philosophical literature with regard to the conscious and unconscious mind, debates as to whether consciousness is connected to mind and whether the mind is within or without the brain. These debates point to the impossibility of defining how the psyche works, where it lies in the human system and what purpose it serves. What is common, however, is that there is something present which currently defies definition. In my view the connections between the conscious and unconscious mind contain and give expression to what we call spirituality.
This is quite different from any external truth proposed by religious dogma. While we can never discover the whole truth about ourselves because it does not present in the mind’ s eye as a total picture, we can sense when we are resisting, avoiding or having an internal psychic argument. If there is a struggle to be spiritual it lies in the struggle to accept what we decide is the truth about us. If the truth about ourselves is denied we cannot be available to our clients spiritually. Counsellors have often been told they need to resolve their own issues but it is seldom suggested they need to know the psychic truth about themselves which is quite a different matter. I use the phrase ‘psychic truth’ deliberately. The psyche claims a wider view than views found in psychological language or in spiritual guides. Psychological language depends on frameworks and summaries of the way people think, act and live together. It doesn’t address the uniqueness of individuality or unique patterns in each person’ s conscious or unconscious mind. Spiritual guides have a tendency to begin with a premise followers need to accept before they are lead to the inevitable conclusions. Psychic truth, on the other hand, permits individual insight, unproven belief, imagination, wish fulfillment and visits from ancestors. It is the stuff dreams are made of and a foundation for creativity. It is a perspective which mirrors possibility and reflects it back to the curious mind. There are important debates in scientific and philosophical literature with regard to the conscious and unconscious mind, debates as to whether consciousness is connected to mind and whether the mind is within or without the brain. These debates point to the impossibility of defining how the psyche works, where it lies in the human system and what purpose it serves. What is common, however, is that there is something present which currently defies definition. In my view the connections between the conscious and unconscious mind contain and give expression to what we call spirituality.
