EMCAPP Journal 2

73 If it is church activity, our patients may accept more reli- gious aspects being included in the therapy process. If a patient comes to a professional, he/she expects psy- chological work and healing. They may also expect to be respected with their religious experiences, attitudes and beliefs or expect some help in integration psychological and spiritual development. But they shouldn’t get evan- gelization i n s t e a d of psychotherapy. Christian Psychotherapy Comment on Friedemann Alsdorf´s “My Therapy Goal – Your Therapy Goal – God’s Therapy Goal?” Anna Ostaszewska Friedemann Alsdorf gives us questions very important for Christian psychotherapy and therapists and points out useful differences between therapy goals and life goals. What is my goal on the basis of my profession? What is my goal on the basis of my spiritual view and calling? Giving these questions assumes integration of the profes- sional and spiritual development of the therapist. The therapist should be aware of goals he or she wants to achieve and they should fit to the patient’s expectations and to the agreement. A client comes to the psychotherapist for psychological healing. He needs to feel well. He may come to God expecting spiritual healing like for- giveness of sins or expecting any healing, including psy- chological well-being. The psychotherapist works in psychological dimension, God can work in every dimension. The Spiritual dimension is larger than the purely psycho- logical, but both of them influence each other and partly occupy the same area. God’s goals can be salvation in general but in psychothe- rapy it can be just psychological healing. This psycholo- gical healing, given in a limited therapeutic process, can be a part of spiritual healing which is the goal of life as a whole. Therapy work assumes an active attitude of the client. Friedemann Alsdorf points also to the danger of passivity when a person “expects everything from God”. The goals of Christian psychotherapy depend on a model of Christian therapy. Christian therapy can be perceived (by therapist and by client) as a church activity and in such a situation it may be interested more in “life goals” and be concentrated on spiritual healing more than on psychological healing. A different model of Christian psychotherapy is when psychotherapy is given by Christians who are professi- onals and therapy is given in centers independent of a church. In this model therapy is concentrated on psycho- logical healing although it can take into account the spiri- tual dimension and the “life goals” of a client. Anna Ostaszewska, Psychotherapist, supervisor, European Certificate of Psychotherapy (ECP) Place of praxis: Association of Christian Psychologists’ Psychological Centre. President of the ACP Psychotherapy Section. ACP Pre- sident in years 1995- 2009

EMCAPP Journal 2

Pages