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Article
St. Ignatius as psychotherapist? How Jesuit spirituality and wisdom can enhance psychotherapy
Psychology
  • Thomas G Plante, Santa Clara University
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
3-1-2020
Publisher
American Psychological Association
Abstract

The great wisdom traditions associated with various religious and spiritual practices and institutions have offered a variety of helpful strategies for more effective living and coping with life’s many challenges. In most recent times, efforts to secularize these strategies have been made in order to appeal to the general population as well as to secular mental health professionals as tools for their clinical practices. Although mindfulness meditation and yoga are perhaps the most notable examples, many other intervention strategies have been and can be borrowed from various religious and spiritual traditions to use in a secular manner if so desired. In this brief reflection, the wisdom and a few of the strategies of St. Ignatius, the founder of the Roman Catholic religious order called the Society of Jesus, commonly known as the Jesuits, are offered with examples presented in and for clinical practice.

Comments

Copyright © American Psychological Association, 2020. This paper is not the copy of record and may not exactly replicate the authoritative document published in the APA journal. Please do not copy or cite without author's permission. The final article is available, upon publication, at: doi.org/10.1037/scp0000214.

Citation Information
Plante, T. G. (2020). St. Ignatius as psychotherapist? How Jesuit spirituality and wisdom can enhance psychotherapy. Spirituality in Clinical Practice. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/scp0000214