Spirituality has arisen as a major item on the agenda of the therapy and healing professions not because therapists or professors have had conversion experiences, but because suffering clients want to bring this important but often vaguely defined concept into the therapeutic situation. Today we can speak of a client-led or grassroots recovery of the spiritual, and it has taken many people by surprise. Up until recently, ‘spirituality’ was frowned on as an activity linked more to mental illness and delusional thinking, than to health and recovery. But some forms of spirituality, at least, can be said to be positive and life-enhancing, often playing a role in the experience of healing and wholeness. What is spirituality, and why does it have therapeutic or healing effects in clinical contexts?
