The shadow of the transcendent

Philip Culbertson

doi:10.9791/ajpanz.1998.03

Philip Culbertson

DOI: https://doi.org/10.9791/ajpanz.1998.03

Abstract

A survey of spirituality as it is discussed in the training literature for psychotherapy reveals that spirituality is defined in a variety of ways which do not always complement each other. Spiritual themes in psychotherapy do not always present in spiritual language but instead may present in the language of values. As in the case of values, so spiritualities may be either constructive or destructive, though their evaluation must be contextually and culturally determined. The author describes the training programme in counselling and psychotherapy which he directs, and finishes with the claim that psychotherapists need to understand that they are as much charged with clients' souls as with their psyches.

"Where there is no guidance a people fall;
but in an abundance of counsellors there is safety." (Proverbs 11: 14)

Author Biography

Philip Culbertson

As recorded in 1998.

Philip Culbertson is a US-born Anglican priest on the faculty of St John's Theological College in Meadowbank, and a lecturer in pastoral counselling in the Theology Department of Auckland University. There he teaches a masters level paper entitled "Spirituality and Counselling". He is also an occasional lecturer in the psychotherapy programme at AIT Akoranga, and on the Continuing Education faculty of the University of Waikato. He is the author of seven books, six of which are on counselling theory, and over 100 scholarly articles. He practises psychotherapy part-time in Ponsonby.