Trauma-Informed Spiritual Direction: The Why’s, What’s and How’s
Spiritual direction is growing and expanding field, in part due to pastors and ministers becoming part time due to financial constraints or they are intrigued by the prospect of spiritual direction training as an extra stream of income that can last through and past retirement. Spiritual direction has become a growing field inclusive of all faiths and beyond faiths.
In the vast history of spiritual direction, this was not the case. It was a specialized offering for those primary in monastic life. When I first learned of spiritual direction, I was a teen attending a monastery where contemplative practice sessions were being offered. It was couched as an offering for folks to further explore anything that may have come up during the sit sessions and have a priest as a listening ear. While I didn’t take them up on the opportunity, it made a significant impression on me. I had experience in the catholic church with confession, and had friendly, humble and kind priests I felt connected to. Spiritual direction felt like a lovely offshoot of the witnessing that I was used to – a listening space of openness and acceptance.
Folks who choose spiritual direction often come for extra support around their spiritual lives, and this can look as wide open as it sounds. Some people have a significant grief they are processing. Some folks are dealing with a child who is ill, or a mother who is failing, or a transition in their lives. Some folks are struggling with a dark night of the soul—that place of desolation from the divine, which for many can be frightening and overwhelming experience. While the expansiveness of the field has increased the ability for folks to seek listening care, there are risks, too.
Spiritual direction programs have no legal or ethical duty to maintain a certain set of practice ethics or processes. While there is a worldwide organization that offers ethical guidelines for their educational and peer resourcing for spiritual directors for their elucidation and consideration for practice or teaching programs, there is no reason why a spiritual direction program choose to use this or another set of guidelines or make up their own code.
Unfortunately, most of this lack of guidance has created more stress and increased burnout in those who are spiritual space-holders. Few spiritual direction programs have thorough trauma trainings in their curriculum taught by seasoned, skilled and certified trauma practitioners. Unfortunately this causes folks coming out of programs to be increasingly at risk for their own misjudgments about folks’ issues, as directors then don’t know when to refer out, where they can help, and how to do so ethically.
As a trauma therapist as well as a certified spiritual director, I found in my own work that the lovely experience of spiritual direction at a silent retreat was an idealized moment in my memory. While beautiful moments abound in spiritual direction, so do the shadows, the pain, the despair. Through my own work with spiritual directors who have burned out, it has become clear to me that there is heightened risk to the client and director both when there are no guidelines and training around trauma. When there is a lack of guidance or ethics when it comes to seeing directees who may or may not be “appropriate” for this kind of listening care, spiritual directors never quite know whether they’ll be able to manage what comes in the door. They are opening themselves up to be a referral source for mental health services, or even become a crisis counselor, whether they are prepared or not. Furthermore, most of us have our own traumas, addressed or not, and can become activated in session and possibly even re-traumatized depending on the story. Directors must have the skills to be able to identify their own and others’ trauma expressions and navigate this often highly stressful terrain.
I didn’t set out to create trainings and a program to train spiritual care providers because I wanted to do so—it was because I cared about reducing burnout in those I saw in practice, and skill building around trauma responses I saw was precisely the help that many ministry professionals lack. When they received training around trauma, they began to feel more confident in their vocation as well as connected to their call. It helped their burnout, from skill-building on up.
The world we’re living in is getting smaller and smaller. While there are conflicts and stresses abroad, in our communities, and within our hearts, we deserve safe spaces where we can access our voice of dissent, pain, and overwhelm without judgment or fear. While pastors and chaplains often have at least a small amount of training in crisis care, most spiritual direction programs that I’ve seen and engaged with have little to no training opportunities in how to deal with trauma. Most folks coming out of training programs I suspect would not be able to identify when someone is coping with a traumatic experience and needs services or someone who is stable and needs a place to vent.
When we are able to better hold spaces that are trauma informed, then we are better able to serve those who seek the care we are offering. With trauma informed care, we are not just providing nourishing and safer spaces for the directees we see, but we are better able to set boundaries and therefore maintain integrity, consistency, and resiliency in our listening care. When spiritual direction organizations and programs take seriously the needs of their directees and directors and become conscious of their role not just to teach and inform but actually fully prepare, the field and those it serves will have a chance to move through the world with more compassion, purpose, and peace.
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