Psychotherapy and Spiritual Direction: Two Languages, One Voice?

by Lynette Harborne

This book explores the similarities and differences between the practice of psychotherapy and spiritual direction and suggests that, whilst there may be distinctions between the two activities, the process is essentially the same. The purpose of the book is to improve the understanding between therapists and spiritual directors, to encourage dialogue and discussion between them, as well as to offer challenges and learning to both. In the process of exploring the interface between the practice of therapy and the practice of spiritual direction, questions arise about how to address issues of spirituality in a psychological context and psychological issues in a spiritual context. A brief overview of the historical background to spiritual direction is given, and attention drawn to the links between this tradition and the development of psychotherapy. Spiritual issues that may arise in therapy together with psychological issues that occur during spiritual direction are discussed, leading on to a comparison between 'dark night of the soul' experiences and clinical depression.

170 pages, Paperback

First published April 24, 2012

Reviews

[Diana · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had this book for some time now and only started to read it seriously (and in earnest) two days ago. I am a trained spiritual director and am currently doing a psychotherapy course. I had long wanted to see the integration of these two disciplines and I am glad Harborne did a good job to show (mostly) the similarities. Differences are discussed in her book, but she argues mostly that it would be great for the practitioners in these two disciplines to see how they could integrate what they know and to complement each other to help another. After all, both disciplines are about helping another to live a better quality life. I like her urgings that both psychotherapists and spiritual directors should be "informed about each others' particular strengths, gifts, and talents" (2012, p.136). The way I see it, eight years from the time Harborne wrote this book, there has not been much progress to integrate these two disciplines. I hope change will come.

[Brian Hohmeier · Rating 3 out of 5]

Harborne initiates and features an intriguing and, I believe, an important discussion, though her contribution is perhaps particularly modest. Discussions in each chapter provide by my estimation some little insight and take their time ramping up to rather brief and simple conclusions. In this same pattern, Harborne seems to save the major thrust of her argument for the concluding chapter, and I'd be pressed not to recommend one only read each chapter's "Conclusion" section and the final chapter in whole to receive the entirety of the book's substance.

As far as the particular contribution Harborne makes toward the consideration of spiritual direction as a modality of psychotherapy, it strikes me as problematic for the very reason she may believe she's positioned to make it. That is, she is both a spiritual director *and* a psychotherapist. Harborne doesn't fail to recognize the diversity of style of practice within spiritual direction, but she primarily identifies those perhaps significantly misaligned as spiritual directors who resist "professionalization" (and this is indeed a real population). I wonder if she doesn't view her own approach to the practice of spiritual direction as normative and if her own approach to the practice of spiritual direction isn't significantly influenced by her style of practice as psychotherapist. Surely this would make the two appear, from her own standpoint, as substantially similar—so much so that she would boldly assert, "I suppose ideally I would hope that many more spiritual directors will train as therapists" (129). That Harborne believes the most expedient solution to spiritual direction realizing its full therapeutic potential is for its practitioners to become professionals *like her* betrays, I believe, a problematic bias in her understanding of spiritual direction's therapeutic identity. One should wonder if this doesn't limit her ability to imagine more substantial differences in its therapeutic practice that my permit, or perhaps even benefit from, some distance from development in a traditional psychotherapeutic practice.

That said, the question Harborne helpfully presses and the challenge she poses to resisters of "professionalization" is important, and perhaps what remains to be proposed is a sort of Third Way. That is, spiritual directors may be interested in advancing the therapeutic possibilities of spiritual direction if it's permitted to do *in its own right*—not as a modality of psychotherapy per se but with the professional independence of healing modalities finding greater support and validation in research, including music therapy, drama therapy and yoga therapy. This, however, will likely need to be the work of a non-therapist, able to stand apart from the profession in which Harborne is entangled. However, it will be a proposal that will still require the standardization of psychological education, "professional" development and ethics with which Harborne challenges spiritual directors, and it will owe gratitude to Harborne for being one of relatively few voices extending such an invitation to spiritual directors to be taken seriously as bearers of a therapeutic tradition and practice.