What professional psychotherapy practice can learn from the Jesuits: Introducing Ignatian spirituality informed therapy (I-SIT).

Abstract

The religious and spiritual traditions offer a wide range of strategies for better living that can be secularized and incorporated into evidence-based and secular psychotherapy practice services. Mindfulness, from Buddhism, and yoga, from Hinduism, are excellent examples of approaches rooted in religious and spiritual traditions that have been secularized to appeal to diverse audiences across the globe. The purpose of this article is to introduce Ignatian spirituality informed therapy, an approach that considers how the wisdom and lifeenhancing strategies of the Jesuits can be best utilized and integrated into quality secular psychotherapy practice in a way that provides value-added clinical tools for psychotherapists' toolbox. Six Jesuit or Ignatian strategies are highlighted here. These include (1) seeing God (or the sacred) in all things, (2) cura personalis (i.e., care for the whole person), (3) the four D's of discernment, (4) using the examen as an end of day review and reflection, (5) managing conflict with accommodation, humility, and the expectation of goodness, and (6) a path to kinship with civility, hospitality, solidarity, and mutuality. Each principle is defined and presented with a case example to demonstrate how the wisdom of each approach can be integrated into the professional psychotherapeutic process.