Our Clients, Ourselves: The Spiritual

Perspective and Social Work Practice

Patricia Sermabeikian

The spiritual perspective is an important but relatively unexplored

area in social work practice. Jung's analytic psychology is presented
as a theoretical frame work for understanding spirituality within the
individual. The practitioner's ability to conceptualize spirituality as a
construct that transcends religious or philosophical ideologies is
discussed, as they may lead to an increased acknowledgment of the
client's guiding spiritual beliefs and values, which would have
therapeutic bene fit.

Key Words: clinical social work; Jungian psychology;

spirituality; values

pirituality in social work practice may be dis- but it has not been fully examined for its applica-

S puted by those who are pragmatic, who may

ask about its usefulness in helping clients at-
tain basic human needs such as food and shelter.
Clients' use of spirituality as a weapon in their
coping arsenal is precisely why spirituality must
be acknowledged. Strengthening clients' abilities to
develop viable strategies to both meet basic needs
and maintain mental health is a social work goal.
Psychologist Carl Gustav Jung (1933, 1958,
1959) postulated that a universal concept of spiri-
tuality exists that, when explored, can enable a
person to see beyond differences in religious be-
liefs and philosophical viewpoints. More than any
other theorist, Jung integrated spirituality into
clinical practice. His perspective can enhance so-
cial workers' sensitivity to the spiritual dimension
of their clients, which may help the clients face
their problems and difficulties.
In the tradition of social work practice, diligent
effort has been made to provide a solid founda-
tion of knowledge and skills to practitioners who
intervene in human problems. Social workers aid
people who are suffering because of myriad issues.
Spirituality has found a place in the areas of death
and dying and catastrophic illness or life events,
tion in life and living. Spirituality is an important
feature of social work practice and ethics and
should be considered an area for educational and
clinical training.
Importance of Spirituality in Clinical Practice
What occurs between the client and the social
worker involves not only the traditional interven-
tions, methods, and skills the social worker ap-
plies, but also a two-way exchange of ideas, feel-
ings, beliefs, and values that may or may not be
directly addressed or acknowledged. Research has
suggested that "patient values appear to be the
second most powerful predictor of clinical bias;
only patient social class is stronger" (Abramowitz
& Dokecki, 1977, p. 465). Many value judgments
are made in the treatment process, and social
workers must continually be aware that nothing is
value free. Objectifying approaches and interven-
tions may be useful, but in doing so social workers
must be careful not to deny or compartmentalize
phenomena experienced in day-to-day practice.
Whether professionals are "believers" in the
spiritual dimension is important. "Nonbelievers"
may not be fully able to accept clients who con-
CCC Code: 0037-8046194 $3.00 (D 1994
National Association of Social Workers, Inc.

178
sider spirituality and religion to be meaningful
and useful within the context of their life experi-
ences (Shafranske & Maloney, 1990). A spiritual
bias can be just as harmful as racism or sexism.
Goldstein (1987) convincingly argued that "stu-
dents and seasoned professionals alike are bearers
of significant moral, value and spiritual beliefs
that are bound to find expression in work with
individuals, families, and communities" (p. 186).
Exploring the Spiritual Perspective
Siporin (1985), in a discussion of clinical practice
theory, observed the following:
An examination of our perspectives requires that
we sharpen our minds and eyes so as to see
things clearly and fully. We will not, however,
look under a nearby bright light for the treasures
that we lost elsewhere, but rather we will search
where it is dark, or where we can expect the sun-
light to come up. There we may discover lost or
new treasures or rediscover old gems in a new
light. We seek just and beautiful truths for and
in social work practice—fair to the evidence,
clear, cleanly stated, revelatory, and illuminating.
We want such truths so that they may propel us
into new pathways of a more effective practice.
(p. 198)
To understand the spiritual perspective, we must
be willing to reverse our usual way of thinking
and looking, which is linear and externally fo-
cused. We must look beyond what is easily
counted and accounted for and examine what
does not fit into our categories and conceptions of
the world. There can be no preconceived notions
about what may be helpful. The spiritual perspec-
tive requires that we look at the meaning of life,
that we look beyond the fears and limitations of
the immediate problem with the goal of discovering
something inspirational and meaningful rather than
focusing on the past and on pathology.
Jung sought to prove that the spiritual dimen-
sion is the essence of human nature. He was an
investigator of the inner world who developed the
theory of analytical psychology and a theory of
personality that included a dynamic
conceptualization of the physical, mental, and
spiritual dimensions as striving for unity and
wholeness within each person. He undertook a
five-year personal journey into the layers and
depths of the psyche and produced 18 volumes of
work (Brome, 1978).
Sermabeikian / Our Clients, Ourselves: The Spiritual Perspective and Social Work Practice
Among Jung's better-known concepts are the
collective unconscious and the archetypes of the
psyche, thought to contain the inherited and ac-
cumulated experiences of the human and prehu-
man species evidenced by the symbols, myths,
rituals, and cultures of all times. Jung attempted
to confirm this hypothesis by documenting and
analyzing his own dreams and experiences and the
dreams of his patients. He also studied and vali-
dated the archetypes as expressed in comparative
religion studies and mythology (Brome, 1978;
Campbell, 1971).
Mythologist Joseph Campbell (1988) referred
to the ancient origins of spiritual practices in an
interview with journalist Bill Moyers:
MOYERS: How do we learn to live spiritually?
CAMPBELL: In ancient times, that was the business
of the teacher. He was to give you the clues to a
spiritual life. That is what the priest was for.
Also, that was what ritual was for. A ritual can be
defined as an enactment of a myth. By partici-
pating in a ritual, you are actually experiencing a
mythological life. And it's out of that participation
that one can learn to live spiritually. (p. 182)
Among the archetypes is the spirit, which, in
Jung's theory, is "universally present in the pre-
conscious makeup of the human psyche" (Jung,
1959, p. 214). His concept of spirit is best exem-
plified in these passages:
The word "spirit" possesses such a wide range of
application that it requires considerable effort to
make clear to oneself all the things it can mean.
Spirit, we say, is the principle that stands in op-
position to matter. By this we understand an
immaterial substance or form of existence,
which on the highest and most universal level is
called God. We imagine this immaterial sub-
stance also as the vehicle of psychic phenomena
or even of life itsel£ .. .
Equally common is the view that spirit and
psyche are essentially the same and can be sepa-
rated only arbitrarily. Wundt takes spirit as "the
inner being, regardless of any connection with
an outer being." Others restrict spirit to certain
psychic capacities or functions or qualities, such
as the capacity to think and reason in contradis-
tinction to the more "psychic" sentiments. Here
spirit means the sum total of all phenomena of
rational thought, or of the intellect, including
 the will, memory, imagination, creative power,
and aspirations motivated by the ideals. (Jung,
1958, pp. 62-63)
Jung was considered by Sigmund Freud to be
the most brilliant of his students in the "inner
circle" of the psychoanalytic school, and he was
Freud's chosen successor. But insurmountable
differences developed between them that finally
resulted in a personal and theoretical divergence.
Jung rejected Freud's theory of the pleasure prin-
ciple and postulated that the human being has a
primary driving spirituality that is just as instinc-
tive as sex, aggression, and hunger. He did not
deny the presence of the biological drives but
stated, "The wheel of history must not be turned
back, and man's advance towards a spiritual life,
which began with the primitive rites of initiation,
must not be denied" (Jung, 1933, p. 123).
It has been suggested that Jung's rejection of
Freud's sexual animality was, in part, his reaction
to his sexual trauma in early youth. This factor
contributed to his interest in spirituality and his
striving "to reorient psychology to a higher spiri-
tual plane" (Goldwert, 1986, p. 557). However,
rather than simply reacting to his own experience,
or being focused on the rejection of Freud's con-
cepts, Jung apparently pursued the understanding
of spirituality for its intrinsic value. He wrote,
"We moderns are faced with the necessity of re-
discovering the life of the spirit. We must experi-
ence it in ourselves. It is the only way we can
break the spells that bind us to the cycle of bio-
logical events....The human psyche from time
immemorial has been shot through with religious
feelings and ideas" (Jung, 1933, pp. 122-123).
Spirituality and Religion
Some resistance to the spiritual perspective ap-
pears to be due to its being perceived as synony-
mous with religion. Although spirituality is ex-
pressed in religion, as well as philosophy and
culture, it transcends ideologies, rituals, dogma, and
institutions. As Siporin (1985) clearly explained,
The spiritual element of the person is the aspect
of an individual's psyche, consciousness and
unconsciousness, that is also called the human
soul. It is in terms of the spiritual dimension that
a person strives for transcendental values, mean-
ing, experience and development; for knowledge
of an ultimate reality; for belonging and relatedness
with the moral universe and community; and for
Social Work / Volume 39, Number 2 / March 1994
union with the immanent, supernatural powers
that guide people and the universe for good and
evil. The spiritual aspect of the person is not sub-
sumed or dealt with in psychoanalytic ego theory
or in cognitive theory, though it has a place in
Jungian and existentialist therapies. (pp. 210-211)
Religious views of spirituality have been con-
trasted with philosophical views of spirituality.
Bergin's (1980, 1990) theistic values are based on
Christian religious philosophy. Ellis's (1980) clini-
cal humanistic—atheistic values are based on ratio-
nal humanistic philosophy. A main element of
this controversy concerns the existence and divin-
ity of God. A hypothesis of God as existent or
nonexistent, as an entity or a force remains one of
the eternal ultimate reality issues in religion and
philosophy.
The following commentary by Brome (1978)
illustrates Jung's quest for the understanding of
the reality of God:
When Jung was confronted with this question,
"Do you believe in God?"... Jung still tended to
remain evasive.... He seems to refer to his Wise
Old Man [archetype] as if the whole humanity
were in touch with the God-like personification
of the collective unconscious.... He describes
God as the inexplicability of fate and the voice of
conscience...... All that I have learned has led
me, step by step, to an unshakable conviction of
the existence of God. I do not take his existence
on belief. I know that he exists." (p. 255)
The problem of the existence of God is a spiritual
issue that each person struggles to resolve through
experiences, philosophy, and religion.
Spirituality and Humanism
Bergin and Jensen (1990) suggested that ideologi-
cal differences between people may be bridged
through the development of the perspective of
spiritual humanism. This perspective encom-
passes the search for more universally accepted
concepts that can be integrated into clinical practice.
Elkins, Hedstrom, Hughes, Leaf, and Saunders
(1988) developed a humanistic definition of the
components of spirituality that was designed to
assess agreement or disagreement with statements
reflecting their nine dimensions of spirituality:
transcendent dimension, meaning and purpose in
life, mission in life, sacredness of life, material val-
ues, altruism, ideals, awareness of the tragic, and
fruits of spirituality. Elkins et al. admitted that
what they had done was not "hard science" but
feit that their initial steps "will help clarify, define,
describe and perhaps even measure spirituality
from a humanistic perspective" (p. 15).
The importance of the spiritual dimension is
also noted by humanistic and existential theorists
such as Frankl (1963), Fromm (1950), and
Maslow (1962), who are outside the traditional
religious ideologies. Maslow observed that "The
human being needs a framework of values, a phi-
losophy of life, a religion or religion-surrogate to
live by and understand by, in about the same
sense he needs sunlight, calcium, or love"; he be-
lieved that all people have a "cognitive need to
understand" and to have a "validated, usable sys-
tem of human values" (p. 206).
Spirituality and Transformation
Carl Rogers, another humanist, acknowledged, "I
do believe that there is some kind of transcendent,
organizing influence in the universe which oper-
ates in man as well.... My present very tentative
view [of humansj is that there is an essential per-
son which persists over time, or even through
eternity" (cited in Bergin, 1990, p. 394). Jung de-
scribed the transcendental function within the
individual as "the psyche's remarkable capacity
for metamorphosis" (cited in Jacobi, 1951, p.
190). People are able to change attitudes, to ac-
complish transitions, and to achieve the unity of
oppositions, and this ability grows as they age.
Jacobi (1951) provided the following example
of this transcendental capacity:
The diseased person or the person, too, for
whom life has lost its meaning stands before
problems with which he vainly struggles. The
greatest and most important problems are basi-
cally insoluble; they must be so because they
express the necessary polarity immanent in every
self-regulating system. They cannot be solved,
but only transcended.... This transcendence of
the individual's personal problems reveals itself,
however, as a raising of the level of conscious-
ness. A loftier and wider interest comes into
view, and through this broadening of the horizon
the insoluble problem loses its urgency. It is not
logically solved in its own terms but pales before a
new and stronger vital direction. It is not repressed
and made unconscious but simply appears in a new
light and so becomes itself different. (p. 178)
Sermabeikian / Our Clients, Ourselves: The Spiritual Perspective and Social Work Practice
181
Jung (1933) postulated that life's challenges,
conflicts, and problems are necessary for the pro-
cess of transformation by which a person changes
from an instinctual being to a spiritual being. He
noted that spiritual symbols and transcendental
values such as spirit, faith, hope, surrender, and
forgiveness are able to propel a change from one
attitude to another. A person can use these human
qualities to develop a higher potentiality. Jung
believed spiritual and transcendental values can
aid the therapeutic process by helping a person
resolve suffering or painful issues so that they are
able to recover, heal, and grow beyond them.
When a person confronts painful issues, he or she
may also question the reason, meaning, and pur-
pose of life. For this reason Jung admonishes
helping professionals to remember "that certain
religious convictions not founded in reason are
necessary for life for many people" (p. 193).
Spirituality and Practice
The Jungian spiritual perspective has been applied
in the treatment of alcohol and substance abusers
(Berenson, 1987; Krystal & Zweben, 1989). The
recovering alcoholic who accepts a 12-step ap-
proach establishes a practical connection to a
higher power. It has been found helpful in treat-
ment for the client to create, in visualization, a
symbol of his or her personal interpretation of the
higher power in a spiritual dimension. The sym-
bol is used to develop internal resources such as
courage, strength, and willpower to help the client
deal with painful emotions that may arise during
the recovery process. Jungian concepts have also
been applied in treatment and recovery from
trauma and in dealing with issues such as grief,
loss, and alienation (Breen, 1985; Klein, 1986).
Spirituality is a human need; it is too impor-
tant to be misunderstood; avoided; or viewed as
regressive, neurotic, or pathological in nature.
Social workers must recognize that a person's
spiritual beliefs, values, perceptions, feelings, and
ideals are intrinsically connected to religious,
philosophical, cultural, ethnic, and life experi-
ences. It is important that the practitioner ac-
knowledge that spirituality in a person's life can
be a constructive way of facing life's difficulties.
As a human need, spirituality is multidimen-
sional, and as such it can be manifested in healthy
and unhealthy ways. Bergin (1990) noted that
"spiritual phenomena have equal potential for
destructiveness, as in the fundamentalist hate
groups" (p. 401). Religious pathology, rigid ide-
ologies, religious fervor associated with mental
illness, cult involvement, and the nonconstructive
consequences of certain beliefs and practices
present additional challenges to professionals.
Acceptance of the spiritual perspective also re-
quires that the client and practitioner develop a
greater level of comfort in sharing spirituality.
Powell (1988) and Renshaw (1984) recognized
spiritual intimacy as one of the six forms of inti-
macy that operates in relationships: "Spiritual in-
timacy is created through the shared revelations of
faith, beliefs and insights into spiritual matters,"
which can "help create a common bond, a context
of belief in which understanding and trust can be
fostered" (Powell, 1988, pp..158-159).
Our professional knowledge and understand-
ing of spirituality can be enhanced by an examina-
tion of traditional and nontraditional religions
and of nonreligious humanistic and existential
philosophies. Developing practice skill in address-
ing spirituality begins with acceptance of the val-
ues, beliefs, and attitudes that are fundamental to
the client. When the client chooses to use spiritual
perspectives, practitioner empathy and encour-
agement of client self-determination should fol-
low. Clients may choose to pursue self-help group
membership, church involvement, prayer, medi-
tation, or commitment to a social action or cause.
The practitioner should be willing to incorporate
goals in treatment that include spiritual values for
the accomplishment of tasks. When deciding what
is in the client's best interests from his or her own
perspective, the practitioner should consider
spiritual issues.
The development of sensitivity and comfort in
discussing the client's spiritual issues will help
practitioners facilitate spiritual solutions in keep-
ing with the client's belief system. A spiritual
value or belief may connect to, or be, a powerful
resource in the client's life that can be used in
problem solving, coping, or the process of recov-
ery or emotional healing. The practitioner who
respects the client's spiritual values and beliefs
may discover that therapeutic benefits can be ac-
complished through them.
Conclusion
Social work values, beliefs, and ethics are based on
certain tenets of faith and conviction about what
we believe to be moral or good for individuals and
society (Compton & Galaway, 1989). Our profes-
Social Work / Volume 39, Number 2 / March 1994
182
sional spirituality could be defined as the collec-
tive inspiration derived from the ideal of human
compassion or well-being that drives us to ad-
vance our cause. Social workers may have indi-
vidual aspirations and interests, but there is a
sense of unity in working toward an ultimate goal,
which includes some transformation of society.
For social work, Jung's perspective can serve as
a frame of reference for a spiritual examination of
our profession and of our clients. We must explore
the loftier issues of life because they are relevant to
daily practice with clients. In the spiritual realm, we
face the larger view and the meaning of life itself in a
way that is difficult to explain and comprehend. The
questions that are shrouded in mystery remain a
challenge to our clients and ourselves. We must fol-
low Jung's lead and embark on the journey to dis-
cover the answers to questions that are a part of the
struggle toward human development. n
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Patricia Sermabeikian, MSW, is mental health co-
ordinator, Barnert Hospital, Paterson, NJ, and ad-
junct lecturer, Rutgers University School of Social
Work, New Brunswick, NJ. Direct correspondence to
82 Park Street, Montclair, NJ 07042.
Accepted June 23, 1992

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