Alice’s Story: A Rationale for Spiritually Integrated Psychotherapy

“When people walk into the therapist’s office, they don’t leave their spirituality behind in the waiting room.”

Dr. Ken Pargament has for decades examined the “peculiar tension between psychology and spirituality.” His book, Spiritually Integrated Psychotherapy, manages to release some of that tension by precisely and respectfully questioning the sensitive spots and taboos that have developed between these two fields of human inquiry.

As whole-person approaches to mental health and therapies continue their positive development, Dr. Pargament’s pioneering experience offers both clergy and psychology professionals several lines of questioning and reasoning that manage to create the space and clarity needed to move these imperative dialogues forward. Dr. Pargament’s genuine search for a productive, workable understanding between the psychological and spiritual disciplines serves also to benefit our overall appreciation of human balance.

Please refer to Journal Entries 006 and 007 for additional materials on Dr. Pargament’s work, which includes a Windhorse Journal podcast dialogue between Dr. Pargament, Windhorse Senior Clinician Marta Aarli, and from the Interfaith Network on Mental Illness, Rabbi Deborah Bronstein and Rev. Alan Johnson. Look for Part 2 of that podcast discussion in upcoming Journal Entry 013.

We have excerpted here a section of the introduction from Dr. Ken Pargament’s Spiritually Integrated Psychotherapy.

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Dear Readers,

Welcome to Part Two of our Hero’s Journey podcast, where we delve into the different stages of the journey, such as the call, refusal of the call, meeting mentors and allies, befriending the dragon, and bringing back the elixir. One of the most vital aspect of these classes is that students are encouraged to define their journey in their own terms—which may or may not involve the medical model. During the course of a Hero’s Journey class, a shared humanity emerges between clients and staff—as both realize that they are “more human than otherwise,” and are capable of traveling the journey with deep courage and dignity. Students reflect on their lives, often moving from narratives of failure and desperation to feelings of worth and connectedness. Self-compassion emerges as the most potent tool to befriend our dragons.