Spirit in Session: Working with Your Client’s Spirituality (and Your Own) in Psychotherapy

by Russell Siler Jones

Spirituality is an important part of many clients’ lives. It can be a resource for stabilization, healing, and growth. It can also be the cause of struggle and even harm. More and more therapists—those who consider themselves spiritual and those who do not—recognize the value of addressing spirituality in therapy and increasing their skill for engaging it ethically and effectively.

In this immensely practical book, Russell Siler Jones helps therapists feel more competent and confident about having spiritual conversations with clients. With a refreshing, down-to-earth style, he describes how to recognize the diverse explicit and implicit ways spirituality can appear in psychotherapy, how to assess the impact spirituality is having on clients, how to make interventions to maximize its healthy impact and lessen its unhealthy impact, and how therapists can draw upon their own spirituality in ethical and skillful ways. He includes extended case studies and clinical dialogue so readers can hear how spirituality becomes part of case conceptualization and what spiritual conversation actually sounds like in psychotherapy.

Jones has been a therapist for nearly 30 years and has trained therapists in the use of spirituality for over a decade. He writes about a complex topic with an elegant simplicity and provides how-to advice in a way that encourages therapists to find their own way to apply it.

Spirit in Session is a pragmatic guide that therapists will turn to again and again as they engage their clients in one of the most meaningful and consequential dimensions of human experience.
 

Genres: Counselling, Spirituality, Theology

288 pages, Paperback

Published June 17, 2019

Reviews

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Russell Siler Jones writes with an unprecedented compassion, warmth, and humility. Although not directly applicable to my own work, this book was a direct line to my heart and soul; it was one of those books that helps you to grow as a human being. I'm particularly impressed by the authenticity with which Jones tell his story, and his stories within the story. I can't imagine he actually did this, but his detailings of the conversations between him and his clients feel entirely genuine, as if he recorded the conversations in real time and what we've been given is the raw process. I also found the descriptions he gathered of how different people understand and feel spirituality to be a wonderous way of opening up this book. I hope he continues to write, because his voice is nourishment for the human spirit and desperately needed in my opinion.

Thank you for this gift, Russell.

[Kimberly Simpson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am humbled by the warmth and wisdom of this book. My favorite quote was, “let your practice be a practice” but I was most inspired by the words, “Give your own spirituality some room to breathe in your practice. Set yourself a frame that keeps you from imposing your beliefs and values on your clients- humility helps with this- and within that safe frame, give your spirituality freedom to help you. Let it expand the range of your understanding and the depth of your presence. The quality of your work and the satisfaction you receive from it will both increase.” Beautiful book!

[Cathy Hasty · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a phenomenal book; both profound and easy to read, wise and packed with real examples while maintaining clinical excellence. This book would be great for psychotherapists, chaplains, clergy of many faiths and social workers. Everyone can learn something here.

[David G · Rating 5 out of 5]

Spirit in Session brought a sense of possibility beyond the theoretical once listening to Russell Siler Jones in SOLIHTEN Conference 2020. Formative training carried with it a need to keep a distance between self and spiritualities uncommon to one's faith. What I would learn was that as a Therapist I had to be prepared to meet Clients in their domain. Spirit in Session resolved much that provincial didactics tends to crystalize in the mind.
Jones' works cover a broad spectrum of Therapist/Client encounters. Such a publication is not a mere primer; however, it is a valuable find for ongoing reference in Psychotherapy. This author has gained much via practical experience and as a trainer of a number of Therapists, all of which convinced me that reading this publication would enhance life and practice as a Spiritual Integration Consultant at Samaritan Counseling Center MV, Utica, NY.

[Michael George · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5
This is a tricky book for me. I found it extremely helpful for generating thoughts about this topic and giving me practical language and frameworks for thinking about "spirituality" in sessions, but keeping my antennae raised for the author's implicit worldview and assumptions was mind-bending and tricky.
As someone who believes in objective truth, how can I work with people within their own spiritual frameworks with authenticity? It might be easier if I held an "everyone has their own truth" mentality, as the author appears to do.

[Christopher D. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Russell Siler-Jones has written a definitive book on the ethical and meaningful integration of spirituality in psychotherapy. He touches on a variety issues that therapists may encounter when assessing and utilizing a client's spiritual understanding and practice. A necessary read for any therapist who wants to integrate spirituality into the therapeutic process.

[Lori Shinkō Snyder · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful for priests, chaplains or therapists when helping give spiritual guidance in tough conversations. This book is clear in directions and most importantly what not to do!

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

there is much that I disagree with, but even those things it was helpful to wrestle with. very thought provoking and practical.