What is Spiritual Counselling?

Spiritual counselling and therapy is the use of a client's own faith or religious beliefs in order to assist understanding and healing. It is not the imposition of the therapist's faith onto that person. It includes counselling, visualisation, faith casting / prayer, faith healing, Reiki, other healing methods and lifestyle counselling.  We have a network of professionals providing Hypnotherapy and NLP in locations throughout the UK including Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Carlisle, Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Leeds, Bristol, Cardiff, Harley Street London.

ALL FAITHS AND BELIEFS SHOULD BE TREATED AS EQUAL

There are many kinds of faith counselling / healing:

• Counselling: The use of both secular (non religious) and faith related counselling methods to help the client to deal with faith and other problems they might be suffering.
  

• Healing: A wide range of energy (e.g. Reiki) and faith (e.g. prayer or casting) methods are used to assist in holistic healing.
  

• Grief and Bereavement: This is a specialist area of faith counselling dealing with the specific issues associated with loss, bereavement and grief.
  

• Motivational (drug and addiction): The use of positive thinking and honest appraisal of the pros and cons of habits and addictions in order to help a client overcome addictions, habits and activities that required change. Faith can also be a great assistance in this area.
  

• Lifestyle: A new hybrid of techniques that frankly has more similarity to life coaching than to counselling. It deals with positive change and planning to attain goals. Spiritual motivations and beliefs are often a major part of life choices and issues.
  

• Visualisation: positive behavioural change techniques using images and visualisation.
  

• Eclectic: The combination of a variety of different styles, and possibly other therapies such as psychotherapy and life coaching, to create a flexible model tailored to the needs of the client.
  

• Specialised: Gay issues, Female or Male issues, Couple or marital issues, Bisexual issues, cultural issues, lesbian issues, carer issues, learning disability issues, Autistic Spectrum Disorder issues. 
  

The above is not a comprehensive list, as there are many variations on the theme. This includes specialist work such as pain management and post traumatic stress counselling assistance.

As you can see from the list given, there are close links between Counselling and other well established therapies, and it is essential, and long standing good practice, to be well qualified in the other therapies too. Avoid any therapist who is insufficiently qualified. Many organisations (including the much publicised BACP) have a large number of unaccredited counsellors. Always ensure appropriate accreditation.

What can Spiritual Counselling help with?

A huge range of issues can be assisted to some degree or another. Most emotional issues and disturbances can be helped to some degree with counselling. In particular however the inference is that the person will be suffering from some faith or belief related issue such as fear of the future, fear of death or morbid fears.

More complex cases such as deep lack of self esteem, severe phobias, depression, anxiety, emotional problems, anger management, severe stress and so forth respond well, especially when combined with psychotherapy.  Of course all medical / clinical issues must be in conjunction with support from a medical doctor.

Qualifications. What do I look for in Spiritual Counselling?

The therapist should be qualified in Clinical Counselling / Clinical Psychotherapy, any other therapies used and have some commitment to pastoral / spiritual work.

Counselling : Until recently clinical counselling  this has been a difficult area. Counselling has no statutory body of registration. Many so called "registers" exist, all claiming to represent the industry. 

There is NO ONE REGISTER of Counsellors. Some are very good, and quality ranges from very good to hopeless. Size is also not always an indication. The well known BACP is very large, but boasts a high proportion of UNACCREDITED members.

There are National Occupational Standards for Counselling, as well as a range of other related standards, and these are the true measure of the quality of service.

There are two main vocational qualification routes for non medical qualification in counselling (some university courses also exist, of varying quality). :

NVQ Accreditation via the Advice and Guidance Awards
ASET accreditation via Counselling, Counselling Speciality and Psychotherapy Awards

University courses often provide a good qualification in counselling, although their primary accreditation is often via the BACP, which is a purely independent body with a large proportion of unaccredited members.

You are strongly advised to look for adherence to National Occupational Standards, ASET / NVQ accreditation and membership of a substantial professional body such as an appropriate Royal Society, the UKCP, NACHP. Being registered with a professional body ensures ongoing monitoring and adherence to a code of conduct and ethics.

Pastoral / spiritual committments: There are a range of International Churches and Organisations that exist, supporting counsellors and therapists working in this field. These often lend informal or peer group support rather than qualifications. Therefore the therapist should have some peer group support from one or more of these, while also being clinically qualified. There are a range of independent and non-accredited pastoral courses, including some accredited according to US LAW.

You can check our NVQ, ASET and National Occupational Standard policies and qualifications here: ABOUT US

Assistance is not just for individuals. Assistance is available for couples, families and those who care for others.