Spirit in Counseling

Spirit is the final goal of all healing--medical or psychological. "Well-being" or "health"--physical or mental, ultimately, is spiritual. "Feeling good" and living positively are what the many forms of healing and therapy are aimed toward.

Along the way we healers, of our various ilks, specialize in diverse aspects of body, mind, and relationships. We "treat" everything from ulcers to addictions. Focused thusly, on our various specialities, we all look and practice differently. Our different approaches, however, do not change our final goal--the spiritual well-being of persons in place, individuals within the family of Mankind.

Whether called "health"--physical or mental, "happiness" or "salvation," the bottom line aim is the same: spirited persons in a loving (and therefore spiritual) context.

In this article I skip over the specialities, the various ways of approach, to focus on our shared common goals. We are all tempted to get lost in our personally chosen forms of healing, to see our way as the best or even only "real" way, to be jealous about "our" clients, forgetting the larger goal of spiritual well-being (whatever it is called).

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The premise of this article is that "well-being," whatever it is called--"health" (physical or mental), "happiness," or "salvation," is finally spiritual. All counseling, as well as medical practice, is ultimately aimed as spiritedness of individuals in their personal contexts.

Along the way to this common goal our healing practices take many shapes, focused on body, mind, and relationships. Good healers, doctors and counselors, wear many suits. Our diversities of focus and practice do not, however, change our shared goals nor the common threads which we all must weave in reaching them.

Here I focus on what I believe to be common themes and principles in all effective healing: the goal of spiritedness and some of the spiritual principles which are inevitably involved in reaching that goal.

Often we healers guilty of shortsightedness, of focusing only on our own special approach or area of emphasis. We are commonly tempted to the sin of omniscience, of believing that only we have the best way and the final answer to what our clients "really" need. I hope here, while keeping myself alert to this temptation, to point out certain specific commonalities in our truly diverse efforts to help our fellow human beings in our own particular ways. <

SPIRITUAL GOAL

First, my presumptuous notion of a common "spiritual" goal. Few, I realize, will initially share this premise. Often the word spirit is used in a specifically religious context, or secularly, as though it were some divisible third "part" of a person--body, mind, and "spirit" (or soul). The familiar result of this understanding, which I do not share, is the professional division of healers into doctors (for the body), counselors--psychiatrists, psychologists, etc. (for the mind), and ministers--priests, rabbis, etc. (for the spirit).

Such specializations are, of course, functional; the implied separable "parts" of a person are, however, pragmatically disastrous. "Spirit," understood here as the common goal of all effective healing, is not a third "part" of a person. Spiritedness, as I mean it, names a quality of living which we all deeply desire and which is the aim of healing, no matter where the therapeutic process is focused.

We may, hopefully, become "spirited" through the various forms of treatment (when they succeed), but we never "have," in any literal sense, a spirit. "Spirited," as understood here, is a quality of living, not a quantity of material, even an immaterial quantity like a ghost of soul.

UNDERSTANDING SPIRIT

******* Premises:

1. Spirit is: A quality of living resulting from coordinated harmony within a person (body/mind) and without (between person and world). Such a person "with spirit" is both a-part from the world and a-part-of the world; may be colloquially described as: "He's got spirit," or, "She's got soul." Best understood with the adjective "spirited" or the noun "spiritedness." The word "spiritual" is an adjective describing this quality of life.

"Harmony" as used in this definition ("coordinated harmony") means honesty or truthfulness rather than peace or absence of conflict.

2. Spirit is not an entity, either material or immaterial (such as a ghost or disembodied soul); not an "it" in any literal sense. Falls in realm of qualities, not quantities. Not to be understood as in the popular idea of: body, mind, and spirit, in which spirit is viewed as a third "part" of a person (the religious "part") or as in the sometimes secular perspectives which think of "it" (the spirit) traveling out of the body.

3. "Spirited" or being-with-spirit is the ultimate goal of all healing, both physical and mental (medicine and counseling).

4. "Spirited" is by degrees, that is, may be graded from zero to maximum. Zero spirit: having no spirit at all is "dead" or "in hell." Fully spirited ("really alive"), the opposite end of the spectrum, is "heaven." Being "dead in spirit" may be described psychologically as "depressed."

5. "Spirit" as a noun in language is always to be understood metaphorically rather than literally. There is, literally speaking, no such "thing" as a spirit.

6. Spirit is a by-product of the coordinated harmony defined in #1; a result of something tangible, rather than an "it" itself. Thus spirit, not being an "it" cannot be approached directly except in thought. Like fun, hope, or happiness--real human experiences, spirit "appears" (metaphor) when the pre-conditions occur.

7. Signs of spirit: Light in eyes, lilt in voice, sense of humor; a spirited person is animated ("really alive") rather than depressed, dull, or "dead" (in spirit). Such a person, in this state of being spirited, "finds meaning in life" and feels "like a part of the universe." "Loving" is the single most descriptive word, the clearest sign, of a spirited person.

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Notes on Direct spirit language ("religious")

1. Any language will do; some, jaded on religion will never use religious language--yet it remains potentially best.

-Can be especially valuable when person "means" it literally, like a child talking of Ghost in closet or Calvin's Hobbs.

-Counselor: respect their literalness, but listen through for clearer understanding.

-Counselor: ultimately will stand-in for God in times of his absence for them (this is the nature of transference)

-Respect and listen through religious language; is often more honest and deeper than psychological (especially when person "intends" it otherwise.

Illus: sex talk vs soul talk; spouse/children vs God; depressed vs. lost; addictions vs. voices ("feel called to")

Published in: Louisiana Journal For Counseling And Development

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