To grow in the spiritual life it can be very helpful to have a spiritual director. This practice of Spiritual Accompaniment is one whereby a person shares with their “guide” not only about their prayer life but the whole of their life and the problems they encounter. The spiritual director/guide through listening is then able to help them to understand the spiritual journey they are on and what God might be saying to them.

Yet people also go to counsellors and psychoanalysts to speak about the problems they encounter in life to receive help and guidance for more effective living. So we might ask ourselves, what is the difference between spiritual direction and counselling? Are spiritual problems and psychological problems the same? Can psychological problems simply be sorted with spiritual direction and vice versa or are we operating on different ground? This article is an attempt to help explain how the psychological and spiritual aspects of the human personality are related and the specific domain of Spiritual Accompaniment compared with that of secular counselling.

Greek philosophy is dualistic and sees the human being as being composed of a perishable body and an immortal soul. But this is not the Christian understanding, which sees human beings as being animated by the breath of God. St Paul in 1 Thessalonians further explains that the human being is made up of three parts – body, soul (psyche/mind) and spirit. (See Fr Pat Collins “Mind & Spirit”Ch1 p.29,Columbia Press)

THE BODY - “soma” - refers to our physical make up, flesh and blood and all its complexity. It is through the body that we connect with the universe, with the world outside ourselves, with other people and with the entire Body of Christ. The outer world comes to us through our various senses: seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, feeling, touching and we communicate with the outer world with our body which is why it is so important.

THE SOUL - “psuke” - is the natural soul, the centre of our thoughts, memory, feelings, emotions and will. It is the domain of our psychological life. Exterior events affecting our bodies arouse in us feelings of happiness, anger, peace, desire for revenge etc which we experience at the level of the soul.

THE SPIRIT “pneuma” is the God-like aspect of our human reality - the breath of God in us and the centre of our longing for God. “The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children” Romans 8.16. Here is the place of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, which is beyond the emotions or senses.

When Paul says that we are “the temple of the Holy Spirit”, he has in mind the image of the Temple of Jerusalem. This was one entity but made of several courtyards or spaces leading to the Holy of Holies where the Glory of God dwelt, and which only the High Priest could enter once a year on Yom Kippur, the day of the atonement.

Outer World

We can only understand what we are living at the level of our spirit through its impact on our soul. The domain of the Spirit belongs to God and He alone can enter here. His visitation or action in our spirit, however, stirs up our senses and emotions and so communicates to our consciousness what is happening here and allows us to discover what He is doing in this hidden domain. In Gal 5.22 Paul says “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and self-control”. These are made manifest through attitudes, ways of behaving or inner feelings. In the great Christian spiritual tradition of Evagrius Ponticus, Augustine of Hippo and Ignatius of Loyola, spiritual discernment (or discernment of the spirits) is based on what we feel: joy, peace, lightness, sadness, discouragement, heaviness, as well as the enhancement of the theological virtues (hope, faith and charity). This is because these spiritual masters were all aware that we can only understand what we are living at the level of our Spirit through its impact on our soul. Many people criticize the Charismatic Renewal for being too emotional in its expression of faith, yet all authentic spiritual experience will have an emotional impact on us. Many Diocesan Exorcists in the secular West tend to interpret dysfunctional manifestations in the people that come to see them only in terms of psychological sicknesses. By ignoring a possible spiritual cause they commit the mistake, frequent in our days, of interpreting all Spiritual experience in psychological terms. This deprives people of full and effective Spiritual discernment about what they are going through.

This is a grave mistake because we are only aware of a Spiritual experience through our emotions and feelings and through the fruit it bears in our life. In Spiritual Accompaniment we bring a mix of spiritual and non spiritual bits and pieces. This is just like in the parable of the net, where the fisherman has to sort the good fish from the bad, and the rubbish, which he throws away. In the same way we have to accept, that when we throw the net down within us we will bring back an entangled mix of facts and feelings. In the process of pulling these up “on the shore” - by expressing them out loud - we will be able to discern what is spiritual and what is not (and sometimes the manifestations are very close). Through doing this we will learn to differentiate between the emotions and the spiritual reality behind them.

To better demonstrate this I would like to give as an example two case studies *which have similar behavioural manifestations – disquiet, lack of consolation in prayer etc - but the reasons for which are totally different and thus need drastically different advice from the spiritual guide.

Frances has decided to see a spiritual guide because she finds she has lost joy in her life. When she comes to see him, she speaks with nostalgia of the time of her conversion when she could enjoy the Word of God and was fed by it every day. She remembers even in her daily tasks she could feel God’s presence with her in a tangible way. A question comes back again and again: “How come that the inner joy I experienced has vanished away? Not only have I lost that path toward happiness, but I have lost myself as well.” Indeed a very different state has followed that blessed time. Frances notes: “I am almost not praying anymore and I don’t know why I have no more courage to go to Mass which before was for me the bread for the journey. I feel the Lord has left me, and I am desperate. Also I have no more courage for the nitty-gritty of family life… Music is for me the only place where I enjoy myself again. Actually it is my own way of praying, so I have decided to offer it to the Lord instead.”

James is a student very committed to the scouts. He is appreciated by the leaders of the movement for his well balanced authority and he has been asked to take on new responsibilities. He asks for spiritual accompaniment because, he says, “I can’t make up my mind”. During the time of accompaniment he appears to be disturbed and, very soon, he explains what is disturbing him: he has failed his June exams and, worrying about this over the summer, has led to insomnia. Not only does he have problems sleeping but also, worse, getting up in the morning. Nevertheless it is not so much his failure in itself that worries him, than what he imagines is the disappointment of his parents. He thinks his father sees him as useless, although his father has shown him on various occasions his deep esteem. His account, riddled with self-reproach, is surprising because despite this, he doesn’t seem to feel the shame that one would expect from such self-deprecation. His question is, “being so useless, how can I take over greater responsibilities?” James says on various occasions that his only desire is to escape any responsibility. But he adds straight away: “But I still pray, for I totally trust God. But although I beg Him to give me His light, I don’t have any clearer vision. That is why I have come knocking on your door and I am hoping for God’s light from you.”

In both cases there are similarities:
- something has changed and altered the previous balance of life and there is a complaint
- the present feeling is difficult to bear and not fulfilling;
- the will is weakened, and the mind is not able to grasp what’s going on;
- the surge of life and the interest for the outer world is as it were dampened.

and differences:
-for Frances what has happened has had an influence on her prayer and sacramental life. She is more self-centered.
-whereas for James his prayer life and his trust in God is not affected, but his self-image in his own eyes and, he thinks, in the eyes of others is devalued.

SPIRITUAL PROBLEM OR PSYCHOLOGICAL ROOT?

These differences help us to understand that for Frances the problem has a spiritual origin, whereas for James it has a psychological root. Frances is living through a time of spiritual desolation, whereas James is in a period of depression.

Frances, had received many consolations following her conversion, and was expecting that her spiritual life would always be like that. But our spiritual life is made of times of Consolation, where the feeling of God’s presence is vivid, prayer is easy and fulfilling and our love for others and our desire to be with God comes naturally. This is followed by times of desolation when God seems to have disappeared, where prayer is dry and it requires will power to keep on praying and where our love for others doesn’t flow easily any more. In these times of desolation, we are tempted to abandon our spiritual routine of daily prayer and attending the sacraments regularly. But indulging in this temptation only makes the desolation stronger. St Ignatius of Loyola explains that these times of desolation, if they are not the consequence of our negligence in our spiritual life, are sent by God to allow us to understand what we are really like without the support of the extraordinary graces and consolations that God has given us.

Our behaviour at this time, reveals how much we truly love God, because even in these circumstances God’s ordinary grace is still given to us to remain faithful to him. This time of desolation is also an opportunity to “perceive interiorly that we cannot by ourselves bring on or retain great devotion or intense love… but that all these are a gift and grace of God our Lord. Further, desolation protects us from pride or vainglory through which we attribute to ourselves devotion or other manifestations of spiritual consolation” (St Ignatius of Loyola, Spiritual Exercises, Ex 322). Thus in this time we are invited to resist temptation and instead persevere in our devotion and love for others and to be patient, waiting trustfully for the time of consolation to return. So while accompanying Frances, her guide should help her to recognise that she is going through a time of desolation which is part of the normal spiritual life, and encourage her to get back to prayer and to realise that some of her thoughts such as that the Lord has left her is a lie coming from the Devil to make her feel down.

Spiritual Direction not the place to tackle depression

James on the other hand is suffering from depression the roots of which are psychological not spiritual. Thus spiritual accompaniment is not the place to address this problem. The guide should thus not give him advice or explanations about his suffering, because depression is not the area of competence of spiritual accompaniment. Of course James still has to be listened to with empathy, and the guide should help him to understand that his spiritual life is not altered by this suffering. Likewise he should help him to value his deep faith and trust in God and his openness to consider the demand for new responsibilities even though he is not well. This demonstrates that despite his suffering he is not closed in on himself. The guide should help him to understand that his insomnia is a sign of something else, some hidden anguish perhaps and that he should seriously consider looking for some counselling. He might also give him some names of people he knows in this area. In the mean time he could see with him how to sustain his spiritual life, his prayer life… Later on, when the problem has been identified through appropriate counselling, there might be a journey of inner healing which could lead to prayer for healing.

Both Frances and James, as anyone who embarks on the spiritual journey, need to be accompanied spiritually. But for James, there is also a specific need of psychological counselling which is not the domain of spiritual accompaniment but of the specialised listening of a trained counsellor.

Spiritual listening is an act of faith in the presence of the Holy Spirit in the encounter between two people. This leads the one who speaks to bring to the light what he needs to say at that very moment, and the one who listens to hear what is relevant at that time for the spiritual journey of the one who speaks. To accompany people spiritually it is important to develop personal intimacy with Jesus Christ through meditation on the scriptures and to grow in understanding of the journey in Christian life. This happens through personal reflection on one’s own journey (hence, for the guide, the importance of being personally accompanied), informed by the writings of those who have followed Christ in the past, particularly masters of the Spiritual life such as St Ignatius of Loyola and others. Psychological listening on the other hand relies on specific knowledge and practice based on the understanding of one or the other of the various schools of psychoanalysis of the unconscious and on the familiarity of the Counsellor with the phenomenon involved in a therapeutic journey. Thus the listening of a Spiritual Guide is rooted in Faith and in the tradition of the Church while the listening of a Psychological Counsellor is a science that needs knowledge, competence and training.

By recognising these different spheres of calling and expertise, the Spiritual Guide will be able to give to Frances and to James the specific help that he/she can uniquely provide in helping them to journey with God, by recognising the signs of the Holy Spirit’s presence in their lives. Through these signs both Frances and James will be able to discover their particular call and mission in the Body of Christ and respond to it.

*Inspired by an article published in Christus Jan 2003 by Violaine Aufauvre.

Dominique Ferry is the leader of the Chemin Neuf Community in the UK