Faith integration

Integrating your spiritual background into your care

All of our therapists are trained to listen for and integrate your unique culture into counseling, which may include your spirituality. We partner with clients from any background or walk of life, as well as making available Christian worldview integration. We’ll follow your lead, integrating your worldview into your care at the level you need.

The Bio-Psycho-Social-Spiritual Model

Counseling generally is bio-psycho-social in its model, meaning we are biological bodies, psychological and emotional beings, who are in social relationships. Optimum Joy expands the holistic model to include spiritual wellbeing.

We understand that your faith may be foundational in your life, and beliefs about God can shape an entire view on the world. Faith and spirituality can be a tremendous resource and source of resiliency, so our approach is to maximize spiritual health and connection. Alternatively, many have been wounded by faith institutions and people, making spirituality complicated. Regardless of faith tradition, meaning making and purpose are spiritual concepts that could holistically build resiliency in your life.

Read about our approach to how we integrate your faith into your counseling, as well as specific faith related topics our therapists address in counseling.

OUR HOLISTIC APPROACH TO WELLNESS

Our emotional inner world is housed by our physical bodies. The mind-body connection is so integrated that when you heal one, you heal the other. It is important to consider your physical health in your overall wellbeing.

Optimum Joy’s Approach to Faith Integration

  • Quality Professionals

    All therapists on staff at Optimum Joy are licensed professional therapists. That means you’re getting a highly trained clinician who is able to support and challenge you in counseling. This professional experience is coupled with an individual’s faith, worldview and beliefs so counseling can leverage your resources for healing. Therapy often looks at how you operate in relationships, including your relationships with God.

    Your therapist at Optimum Joy is always willing to have a conversation with you on how to best integrate your faith in counseling. Please make your desire to address this in counseling known on your intake paperwork.

  • Spiritual Manipulation & Church Hurt

    If a person, group, or institution used spiritual material to manipulate your life, then you have experienced spiritual manipulation. The nuances can be hard to discern, especially if power and authority have been misused. A similar but different wounding can happen when ‘the church’ leaves you feeling hurt. This can be from any type of leader or more generally a disappointment or failure of the church to care for you well. Church hurt can trigger attachment wounds and impact your attachment to God, making them important dynamics to explore and heal.

  • Purpose & Meaning

    All human beings are philosophers. We all think about our lives and how we fit into the world. Who am I? Why am I here? From a general definition, to be spiritual is to be connected to something larger than ourselves. People find many ways to fulfill being connected beyond the individual in faith and community life, activism, social justice, humanitarian work, generosity, and generally being a good human. A small task like recycling becomes a spiritual discipline of sorts when done with the view of humanity stewarding the planet in mind.

    If you are feeling purposeless, there may be a spiritual theme to explore with your therapist. Throughout the ages, depression and anxiety often were viewed as dark nights of the soul and precursors to spiritual transformation. It is your soul’s way of letting you know something is coming. While our therapists are rooted in psychology, science, and biology, we also can consider together if your purposelessness is a spiritual symptom we can seek to make meaning from.

  • Spiritual Identity & Development

    Continued learning is a pillar of Optimum Joy’s values. All our staff engage in cultivating curiosity and growth in their personal and professional lives.

    If you are interested in further developing your spiritual life alongside your bio-psycho-social goals, then one of our staff therapists can apply psychology and counseling to help you grow in your spiritual development.

Connect with someone who gets where you’re coming from.