Loving in the context of community mental health practice: a clinical case study and reflection on mystical experience
Current research on mystical experience is offering community mental health professionals the opportunity to re-consider the role of love within clinical care. In psychological literature the historical conflation of love and sexuality is fraught with ethical concerns about professional impropriety,...
| Published in: | Mental health, religion & culture |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Taylor & Francis
2014
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| In: |
Mental health, religion & culture
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| Further subjects: | B
Case study
B community mental health B Love B Mystical Experience |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | Current research on mystical experience is offering community mental health professionals the opportunity to re-consider the role of love within clinical care. In psychological literature the historical conflation of love and sexuality is fraught with ethical concerns about professional impropriety, and the abuse of power. But the intimacy, intensity and beauty to be found within the therapeutic process bears the hallmark of the mystical, alluded to by Carl Rogers near the end of his career. This embodied experience that researchers are striving to understand in client populations is overlooked within the context of the therapeutic relationship. Described as the "essence" of love, or mystical consciousness, this liminal and transformational experience has the capacity to challenge and refresh the medicalised, often inhospitable, culture of community mental health by helping "professionals" re-discover that in treating the help-seeker they are always treating the Sacred Self. |
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| ISSN: | 1469-9737 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Mental health, religion & culture
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1080/13674676.2012.749849 |