I am confused. When you talk about “spiritual therapy” what particular approach are you suggesting. To my knowledge there are five broad approaches :It’s never really discussed in academia and relatively few psychotherapists would promote it but they probably would not object to a patient doing it on their own. While there are a few psychotherapists who work it into their therapy, it’s simply not an endorsed method of treatment in the field of clinical psychology.
Psychoanalysis and psychodynamic therapies. ...Behavior therapy. ...Cognitive therapy. ...Humanistic therapy. ...Integrative or holistic therapy.What would be a “specific god force?”If scientific evidence was found for anything more specific than a vague god force I suspect there’d be a great reluctance to share. Anything proving something more specific would likely disapprove other religions and/or sects.
While agreeing that one’s methods determine what one will find, it should be clarified that the social sciences share the same philosophical basis as physics, chemistry and biology. The scientific method is utilized in psychology, paleoanthropology, sociology, archaeology, economics, and so on. The methods employed obviously vary depending on the subject matter, but they rest on the same foundation of collecting qualitative and quantitative data, statistical analysis, experiments, field surveys, case research, etc. Science is a rational system dedicated to the study of the structure and processes of creation through observation and experimentation and includes the organization of those discoveries into body of knowledge. There is nothing that restricts it to what may be referred to as “physical data”.What do you mean by science? If you are talking about the natural sciences then you have to realize that the scientific method is limited to physical data. Its just not possible to find non-physical evidence within that framework of knowledge.
Much end of life counseling centers on spirituality http://endoflife.northwestern.edu/religion_spirituality/There’s a big difference in working with a spiritual person and using spiritual methods, such as Centering Prayer and other forms contemplation as a treatment. Also, there are some psychologists who try to distinguish depression from a spiritual dark night as taught by Saint John of the Cross, but overall, I doubt that there are more than very few psychologists who ever heard of the dark night!
I am not against spiritual counseling when used appropriately used but I am against unqualified therapists who use therapeutic techniques indiscriminately.You claim that spirituality can be incorporated into those treatments that are commonly used by psychotherapists, but from my own experience as a psychologist, I have never seen this happen! Again, there are some psychotherapists who utilize spiritual techniques, but these techniques are simply not a part of the treatment paradigms you have listed
I can not think of any stand alone spiritual therapy and if there were I would not recommend it for reasons I listed in a previous post. Now, that does not preclude the use of a person’s spirituality in any of the approaches I listed. I gave you an example of how in my first reply. I can think of ways a person’s spirituality can be utilized in such disorders as depression, borderline personality disorder, pedophilic disorder and a host of others when it is appropriate.You claim that spirituality can be incorporated into those treatments that are commonly used by psychotherapists, but from my own experience as a psychologist, I have never seen this happen! Again, there are some psychotherapists who utilize spiritual techniques, but these techniques are simply not a part of the treatment paradigms you have listed.