24/02/2025
WHAT ABOUT SPIRITUALITY IN THERAPY ?
In these rather special times it feels important to talk about spirituality.
Spirituality is an extraordinary part of our ordinary lives. From birth to death, spirituality is manifest in life’s turning points, revealing mystery and depth during these pivotal moments in time. In crisis and catastrophe, spirituality is often intertwined in the struggle to comprehend the seemingly incomprehensible and to manage the seemingly unmanageable.
However, spirituality is not reserved exclusively for times of crisis and transition. It is interwoven into the fabric of the everyday. We can find the spiritual in a piece of music, the smile of a passing stranger, the colour of the sky at dusk, or a daily prayer of gratitude upon awakening. Spirituality can reveal itself in the ways we think, the ways we feel, the ways we act, and the ways we relate to each other. Paradoxically, the presence of the spiritual dimension can also be felt through its absence, in feelings of loss and emptiness, in questions about meaning and purpose, in a sense of alienation and abandonment, and in cries about injustice and unfairness.
Spirituality is, in short, another dimension of life. An extraordinary dimension, that is a vital part of ordinary life and what it means to be human. We are more than psychological, social, and physical beings - we are also spiritual beings.
When people walk into my therapist office, they do not leave their spirituality behind in the waiting room. They bring their spiritual beliefs, practices, experiences, values, relationships, and struggles along with them. Implicitly or explicitly, this complex of spiritual factors often enters the process of therapy. Yet many are unaware of or unprepared to deal with this dimension in treatment.
You can contact me - Daria Tolstoy - via email daria@tolstoy.ch, to find out more about how I work (based on brief therapy) and to book a session in person in Eclépens Switzerland, and/or for an on-line session from anywhere in the world. If you would rather talk, please just call me.
I do sessions in French, English and Swedish. I used to speak German and Spanish well, so I have a good understanding of these two languages, even though I am not fluent anymore.
́rapiebrève
