Volume 20, Issue 1, Spring 2020
Matthew McWhorter
Pages 111-133
Integrating Spirituality and Mental Health Services
Insights from Benedict Ashley on Psychotherapy
Contemporary mental health professionals exhibit interest in integrating spirituality into the services they provide to clients. This clinical integration raises questions about both the goals of mental health services and the professional relevance of mental health providers’ spiritual competency. Drawing on the Christian anthropology of St. Thomas Aquinas, Benedict Ashley’s approach to psychotherapy differentiates psychopharmacological, psychotherapeutic, and spiritual approaches on the basis of the different domains of a client’s personality. These domains are the focus of different professions, and Ashley’s account suggests that mental health providers who lack additional spiritual-moral training should adopt a clinical model that recognizes their work is spiritually oriented but not spiritually directive.