Psychiatry & Psychology | By December 05, 2007 | By Robert Yourell, MA | 4 Comments

Spirituality and Mental Health, Part IV of IV: Health-Centric Spirituality in Psychotherapy

Consider the spiritual elements that I pointed out from research on spirituality and health in the previous parts of this series. They were: meaning, gratitude, peace, confidence, sense of identity, and acceptance.

The somatic (body mind) approaches to psychotherapy, including EMDR, tend to “unlock” these experiences in ways that are very personal to the individual. Generally, people refer to this sensation of de-stressing and expanding awareness as a spiritual experience. They feel that their greater ease in expressing their higher values is a spiritual achievement. The subjective sense of energy work that can be used in creating the positive “state shift” that I mentioned in the last article can also feel very spiritual. Read more →