Intro to Spiritual Counseling
Spiritual Counseling is non-medical, non-diagnostic and client-centered.
I respect and incorporate the totality of who you are in our work together.
We are not simply physical beings.
We are not simply mental/psychological beings.And even though I am a sociologist, and hold a social constructionist perspective, my own lived experience causes me to argue — neither are we purely social beings.
In the scientific debates about nature versus nature, both win.
As one of the oldest of twelve living children, I was able to observe, very early in life,
just how individual my younger siblings were — from birth.
They were not born blank slates on which family and society at large wrote.
Family and society did write, but (on average barely twelve months apart) within days of birth,
each began to exhibit hir* own distinct personality.
And over the years, each has reacted to nearly identical stimuli (in terms of family, school, teachers, and history effects) in markedly different ways — ways that, within a short time, became characteristic identifiers of their individuality.
Many, or most, of us identify as more than our biological selves.
We identify as more than descendants and members of our families of origin.
Many, or most, of us recognize a shared humanity with those around us.
We acknowledge that there is a range of shared human emotion and responses and that certain
(usually social) pressures are more likely than other pressures to produce specific psychological responses.
But we identify as more than our psychological adaptations.
Many, or most, of us also recognize that we have been/are socialized,
that societies mold us and instruct us in attitudes, knowledge, and behavior.
Yet we also identify an essential inner core that is doing the responding to that social stimuli.
We have the sense of an inner observer, an inner witness who remains stable across the years,
taking in that which goes on around us in, and then, responding to identical stimuli in ways that have a different feel than the ways of others around us.
We identify this inner observer as ourselves — as the “I” or “me” — as the part that was the same
at four or seven or fifteen or any number thereafter.
Religious and spiritual perspectives (across time and location) identify that inner observer — that
something Elizabeth Cady Stanton called “the essential solitude of self" — as the spirit or soul.
And while there are complex debates about whether these two words indicate the same or different aspects of that self, spirituality hypothesizes that there is such a self — a self that extends beyond the body and the mind and the social actor.
Many, or most, of us recognize ourselves as spiritual beings.
We have, or long for, a sense of purpose.
We hold, or long for, a set of cohesive beliefs about the meaning of life.
We hold, or long for, a set of cohesive beliefs about the possibilities of an afterlife.
When we seek out someone with whom to do personal growth work, our own ideologies and
theologies must be taken into account and respected.
Our beliefs are not only sacred, they are sacred to us.
In any analysis (sociological, hypnotherapeutic, or otherwise) — even in a self-analysis — the
totality of our belief systems and world view must be taken into account and honored.
Any evaluation, and any listening ear or helping hand must respect the whole person.
With no particular ideology of my own to push — I have lived experience across a broad range of
spiritual perspectives.
Central in our work together, will be my respectful inclusion of your particular spiritual and/or
religious perspectives — both in any assessment of how they affect you in the present — and in
allowing your spiritual perspective to help facilitate the growth work we do together.
*hir – a gender-inclusive singular pronoun
Rev. Dr. Nadine Rosechild Sullivan is an ordained minister, affirming the central and
overlapping truths of all spiritual and religious systems (interfaith).
She has knowledge of, and/or experience with, varied spiritual and world views, including, but
not limited to: multiple streams of Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, New Age/New Thought
and earth-based spiritualities.
From the start of her ministry, she has walked in, and instructed others in, the principles of faith,
currently being taught under popular titles like the law of attraction or manifestation.
She describes her own journey in Turn Your Life Around! Expand Your Use
of 'The Secret' & Manifest Intentionally in Every Area of Your Life.