Benner / Moon Spiritual Direction and the Care of Souls

A Guide to Christian Approaches and Practices
1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-5140-1477-6
Verlag: IVP Academic
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 254 Seiten

In recent years, many Christian clergy, laity, and mental health professionals have rediscovered the ancient practices of spiritual direction. Seen as a refreshing alternative to the techniques and limitations of modern psychology, such practices offer new insights for pastoral care. But many remain unclear on what spiritual direction is and whether its methods are applicable to their own clients and parishioners. Spiritual direction is a practice of Christian soul care that is found most notably in the Catholic, Orthodox, and Episcopal traditions but is also present in Wesleyan/Holiness, Pentecostal/charismatic, social justice, and Reformed communities. Predating modern counseling and psychotherapy movements but sharing key principles and insights for spiritual formation, spiritual direction offers significant resources for today's pastors, counselors, therapists, chaplains, and other caregivers attuned to the work of God in people's lives. In this landmark volume, editors Gary W. Moon and David G. Benner, along with a team of expert contributors, provide a comprehensive survey of spiritual direction in its myriad Christian forms. Specific chapters offer careful historical perspective and contemporary analysis of how Christians from various backgrounds have practiced spiritual direction, with particular attention to each tradition's definition of spiritual direction, the process of authentic transformation, the role of the spiritual director, indicators of mature spirituality, and other aspects of the spiritual direction process. Chapters also provide psychological and clinical insight into how spiritual direction is similar to, different from, and can be integrated with psychotherapy and pastoral counseling to help others experience spiritual transformation and union with God.

David G. Benner is an internationally known depth psychologist, transformational coach, and author whose life passion has been helping people walk the human path in a deeply spiritual way and the spiritual path in a deeply human way. His books include Sacred Companions and the Spiritual Journey trilogy, including The Gift of Being Yourself. Gary W. Moon (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) is the founding director of the Martin Institute and Dallas Willard Center for Spiritual Formation at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California. He continues to serve as the director of Conversatio Divina for the Martin Institute. He also serves as distinguished professor of psychology and Christian spirituality at Richmont Graduate University. He is the author of numerous books and curriculum resources including Apprenticeship with Jesus and Falling for God.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Benner, David G.

Moon, Gary W.

Leseproben

Preface

The number of recent publications on spiritual direction bears witness to a widely noted but nonetheless remarkable rise of interest in spirituality. Clergy, Christian educators, youth ministry specialists, counselors (both mental health and pastoral) and large numbers of Christians without any formal ministry involvement in soul care are all reading books on spiritual direction and attending conferences and retreats on spiritual formation. In large sectors of the church, few would have ever even heard of the concepts of spiritual formation or direction until recently. Yet the seminaries and colleges of many of those traditions are now busy refashioning departments of Christian education into programs in spiritual formation, while clergy and laity alike seek opportunities to learn about spiritual direction.

The parallel development of interest in spirituality among mental health professionals has also been remarkable. For a century counselors and psychotherapists have held their privileged positions in soul care with remarkable lack of awareness of the spiritual guidance tradition out of which their roles developed. Even Christian therapists have, by and large, practiced their calling with little attention to spirituality. Theories of the divine (theology) have seemed of more interest than experience of the divine (spirituality) as Christian mental health professionals focused on the integration of psychology and theology. How easily we missed the fact that the most essential integration is the synthesis that occurs within the individual—something that occurs optimally when it is grounded in an ever-deepening experience of the divine.

Miriam E. and Todd W. Hall (1997) have summarized the important milestones along the road to incorporating spiritual beliefs and practices into the process of psychotherapy that are already in the rearview mirror. Specifically, they noted (1) “the inclusion of religion as an element of human diversity in the American Psychological Association’s. . . (1992) code of ethics,” (2) “the inclusion of spiritual problems as a V-code in the DSM-IV” (American Psychiatric Association 1994), and (3) “a number of important publications dedicated to religious therapy” (see Worthington, Kurusu, McCullough and Sandage 1996 for a review of these).

Lowering the microscope to focus on the predominantly evangelical movement known as “the integration of psychology and theology” reveals a growing shift in attention to Christian spirituality and its potential role in clinical practice. Psychotherapy and the Spiritual Quest (Benner 1988) was a permission-giving volume for those who desired to venture across the chasm that had been dug between professional psychology and spiritual longing. In 1995 the Christian Association of Psychological Studies held its international conference under the banner “Our Heritage of Soul Care.” According to Thomas Oden (1995), this was the first gathering of either mental health professionals or pastoral counselors that had adopted a theme from Christian spirituality. A special issue of the Journal of Psychology and Christianity followed that was devoted to “Christian spirituality and mental health” (Moon 1995). In 1997 Gary W. Moon’s Homesick for Eden discussed the explicit integration of spiritual direction practices into psychotherapy. A few years later the Journal of Psychology and Theology gave two volumes of attention to “Christian Spirituality: Theoretical and Empirical Perspectives” (McMinn and Hall 2000; 2001).

Interest in spiritual direction on the part of pastoral counselors has also been developing. Israel Galindo (1997) offered a landmark comparison of the ways pastoral counseling and spiritual direction address spiritual needs and issues, and J. J. Shea (1997) presented an important discussion of the way in which each contribute to faith development. David Benner has recently addressed pastoral counseling from the perspective of spiritual direction (2002) and vice versa (2003).

Unfortunately, however, the picture of spiritual direction presented in this developing literature has often been quite one-dimensional, failing to reflect the rich diversity of Christian spiritual formation and direction. Typically speaking from within the perspective of a single denominational framework or theological tradition, each represents only an extremely small part of the remarkably rich whole that has yet to be presented.

The present volume addresses this omission by presenting articles on spiritual formation and direction from representatives of seven major traditions of the Christian church. Borrowing from Richard Foster’s (1998) classification, at the heart of the book will be the voices of seven different pastors, priests or theologians who will describe the history and process of spiritual direction and understanding of spiritual formation from within their tradition—these including Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Episcopal, Reformed, holiness, social justice and charismatic Christianity.

For ease of reading and comparison, the seven contributors have agreed to use the topics as section headings:

• • definition of spiritual direction

• • practice of spiritual direction

• • process of authentic transformation

• • role of the spiritual director

• • indirect indicators of mature spirituality

• • relationship of spiritual direction, psychotherapy and pastoral counseling

• • referrals to other soul care professionals

• • bibliographic suggestions

Recognizing that spiritual direction is a form of soul care that is of keen interest to pastoral and other Christian counselors, we then address this interface with four chapters that compare and contrast spiritual direction, pastoral counseling and psychotherapy. The focus of these chapters is not merely academic distinctions but practical contributions each expression of soul care can make to the others.

The majority of the chapters in this book are adapted from articles first presented in two special issues of the Journal of Psychology and Theology in 2003, focusing on spiritual direction and mental health. All were refocused for the present book, with additional chapters being written to anchor spiritual direction in relation to Christian soul care, not simply psychotherapy.

This book has been compiled with the hope that it will aid in the rediscovery of spiritual direction throughout the Christian community. While it is important that our understandings of spiritual formation and transformation be anchored in the richness of historic Christian spirituality in all its diversity, it is also essential that we realistically face the challenge of reintegrating streams of soul care that have been separated for nearly a century. To do this we need respectful interdisciplinary dialogue and ecumenical openness. It is hoped that this volume will contribute to this climate and thereby help all who seek to understand or facilitate the process of soul care.

References

American Psychological Association. 1992. Ethical principles of psychologists and code of conduct. American Psychologist 47:1597-1611.

———. 1994. Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders. 4th ed. Washington, D.C.: Author.

Benner, David G. 1988. Psychotherapy and the spiritual quest. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker.

———. 2002. Sacred companions: The gift of spiritual friendship and direction. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press.

———. 2003. Strategic pastoral counseling. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker.

Eck, B. E. 2002. An exploration of the therapeutic use of spiritual disciplines in clinical practice. Journal of Psychology and Christianity 21 (fall): 266-80.

Foster, Richard J. 1998. Streams of living water: Celebrating the great traditions of christian faith. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco.

Galindo, Israel. 1997. Spiritual direction and pastoral counseling: addressing the needs of the spirit. Journal of Pastoral Care 51, no. 4:395-402.

Hall, M. E. L., and T. W. Hall. 1997. Integration in the therapy room: An overview of the literature. Journal of Psychology and Theology 25:86-101.

Moon, Gary W., guest ed. 1995. Christian spirituality and mental health. Special issue of Journal of Psychology and Christianity 14:291-373.

———. 1997. Homesick for Eden. Ann Arbor, Mich.: Servant.

McMinn, Mark R., and T. W. Hall, guest eds. 2000. Christian spirituality: Theoretical and empirical perspectives. Special issue of Journal of Psychology and Theology 28:251-320.

———, guest eds. 2001. Christian spirituality: Theoretical and empirical perspectives, pt. 2. Special issue of Journal of Psychology and Theology 29:3-79.

Oden, Thomas C. 1995. Our heritage of soul care. Paper presented at Christian Association of Psychological Studies (CAPS) international conference, Our Heritage of Soul Care: Nurturing the Soul in the Clinic, Community,...