심리치료와 영성지도의 유사성과 차이점에 관한 고찰

A Study on Similarities and Differences between Psychodynamic-psychotherapy and Spiritual Direction

This present study is to address comparing and contrasting psychotherapy with spiritual direction. The authors focus on spiritual direction of rich Christian tradition which has expanded and noted remarkable rise of interest in spirituality in resent years. Spirituality has become increasingly important in the circle of psychotherapy as well. Traditionally, psychotherapists were trained to focus principally on the psychological dimension. However, the reality is that the psychological and spiritual dimensions overlap considerably. Accordingly, the challenge for contemporary counselors and psychotherapists are to become sufficiently conversant with spiritual and religious dynamics to meet client needs and expectations. The authors raised the issues on the limitation of psycho-dynamic psychotherapy and other schools of psychotherapy, specifically in term of spiritual dimension and suggested that the traditionally-inherited spiritual direction of the Christian community can be a strong complimentary, rather fundamental component to the psychotherapeutic approach. Throughout the article, the discussion is made to anchor spiritual direction in relation to Christian psychotherapy, not simply Christian soul care. Major points of commonality between spiritual direction and psychotherapy are compared and five characteristics are discussed by differentiating psychotherapy from spiritual direction. It is concluded to suggest the need of integrating the spiritual direction as means of more intentionally addressing the spiritual issues of their clients need to pay attention to the unique dynamics of spiritual direction into the practice of psychotherapy.