Counselling adolescents when ‘spiritual emergence’ becomes ‘spiritual emergency’

Abstract

This article provides a rationale for a closer examination and recognition of unusual consciousness events in adolescence that have a specifically spiritual content of the kind described by Stan and Christina Grof as “spiritual emergency”. A case vignette is discussed in the light of new understandings about how non-ordinary spiritual experiences in adolescence, triggered by loss and grief, can lead to self-actualising outcomes. This article will broadly discuss these experiences and suggest attitudes and strategic positions that counsellors can adopt to help them recognise spiritual emergence and spiritual emergency in their adolescent clients, and to encourage their disclosure and support.