Jewish Meditation in Counseling

Abstract

Many counselors integrate meditation into treatment with clients. Although meditation can be presented as a secular practice, it also holds spiritual and religious relevance for many faith communities. In this article, we explore the use of Jewish meditation as a spiritually oriented treatment intervention with Jewish clients. Literature examining the relationships among counseling, the Jewish population, and Jewish meditation is presented. This article also includes practical considerations for integrating Jewish meditation into counseling.

Veiling and unveiling: Caution in explicitly integrating Jewish spirituality in psychotherapy in Israel.

“…Additionally, the Jewish spirituality practices described in this study (e.g., praying, using parables or sacred texts) mirrored those in previous publications with Jewish clients (Hilert & Gutierrez, 2020; Milevsky & Eisenberg, 2012; Schnall et al, 2016), as well as Christian ones (Richards et al, 2023), suggesting their effectiveness across cultures. Psychotherapists may adopt these practices when they perceive that the client is ready.…”

Spiritually integrated psychotherapies in real-world clinical practice: Synthesizing the literature to identify best practices and future research directions.

“…Several adaptations have been developed integrating traditionspecific understandings, such as Jewish (Hilert & Gutierrez, 2020), Muslim (Ghorbani et al, 2018), and Christian (Trammel, 2018) mindfulness. Additionally, scholars have begun to intersectionally consider both racial and ethnic background and religious context (Choe et al, 2021).…”