CALLING ALL THERAPISTS WITH A SPIRITUAL PRACTICE!

Hi! My name is Rebecca, and I am a post-graduate student on the MSc in Consciousness, Spirituality and Transpersonal Psychology with Alef Trust, accredited by Liverpool John Moores University. This research is in partial fulfilment of the MSc by means of a dissertation and is being supervised by Dr Gabriel Fernandez-Borsot. I have over 10 years’ experience as a psychotherapist and ethics has always been something that has interested me.

This research is inquiring into how psychotherapists who integrate their own spirituality into their practice may embody and foster a deeper ethical awareness to prevent harm and abuse and promote a healthy practice. The objectives are to gain insight into how having a spiritual practice may influence therapists ethical awareness, or not. This is borne from my interest in the growing movement of psychedelic-assisted therapy and working with extraordinary states of consciousness seen around the world. I have a curiosity about how psychotherapists can embody a greater ethical awareness that withstands a change in consciousness where the boundaries can become blurred.

Ethical approval has been granted for the research by the Alef Trust Research Ethics Panel, application reference ATREP2404, and includes approval to recruit participants online, such as via social media and forums.

I aim to interview five to ten psychotherapists who have a spiritual practice that they integrate into their therapy practice. Interviews will be held on Zoom at a time that is convenient for the participant and last up to one hour. Participation is completely voluntary, and I am grateful to anyone who considers, shares or participates.

To participate, you must be:
• English speaking
• Any gender
• 18+ years old
• 5+ years of post-qualification experience as a psychotherapist
• Have a spiritual practice* and aim to integrate spirituality in their practice
• Have interest in deepening their ethical awareness

* Spiritual practice is defined as an activity or ritual that is performed regularly as a means of connecting with a higher power – religious or not. Integrating spirituality into psychotherapy may take myriad forms from connecting to a higher power before a session to using skills such as intuition in session with a client. These are just 2 examples; you may do something totally different.

If you are not eligible to be a participant but know someone who is, please feel free to share this research. This includes sharing on social media.

Please see research advert flyer here.

Any questions, feedback or suggestions, you can email me at altrmoug@ljmu.ac.uk

Thank you for taking time to read!