When Clients Deconstruct: How Our Way-of-Being Facilitates the Healing of Spiritual Struggles

For many clients, religious and spiritual beliefs serve as the foundational lens through which they interpret and make sense of their experiences and the world around them. When adversity strikes, they often turn to their faith as a way of attributing meaning to their suffering. However, when the distress is too severe, this interpretive grid can fall short, leaving these individuals experiencing great spiritual pain and going through a season of what has become known as religious deconstruction. This seminar addresses the importance of assessing for spiritual pain and addressing these spiritual struggles in a multiculturally competent manner. The religious coping literature provides the empirical base to understand this spiritual pain while common factors research highlights the most efficacious way to walk alongside strugglers. Participants will learn how their “way of being” creates the type of alliance necessary to facilitate the healing of spiritual wounds.

Learning Objectives: 

1.) Participants will be able to distinguish between the three domains and six types of spiritual struggles in order to assess for underlying spiritual distress. 

2.) Participants will be able to describe the importance of “way of being” in the nurturing of a strong alliance and identify the postmodern tenets of this posture that best facilitate healing for those experiencing spiritual struggles and/or faith deconstruction. 

3.) Participants will be able to list and describe the interventions and interactions that facilitate growth at various phases of the resolution process and be able to apply them with clients who are struggling spiritually.

Mentanna Campbell