Abstract:
Over a 12-month period, a series of discussions were held with a group of nine mental health professionals working in a residential centre with clients who had alcohol and substance addictions. The group’s initial aim was to explore the significance of spirituality for clients and to identify ways of addressing clients’ spirituality in their own professional practice. In their work with their clients, they shared the perspective that addiction can develop from people’s attempts to cope with the effects of trauma. They also experienced tension between institutional expectations influenced by the medical model and the need they perceived to incorporate spirituality in their work with clients. As group members explored their own spirituality in the context of their professional relationships with clients and the institution, they discovered some of the benefits of their own non-denominational counselling practices. Although addiction was conceived by the group as a false or unwelcome outcome of the struggle for meaning following trauma, it could also be seen as an adaptive process of recovery as well as a spiritual quest that might reconnect clients with their lost potential.
