The Challenge of Psychotherapy for Religion and Spirituality

INTRODUCTION In Western Europe, the Christian churches are changing at a large scale. Two examples may illustrate the new situation: In France, a traditional catholic country, until the 1960s the belief in God remained stable around 75 %. In 2006, only 52 % of the population indicate that they trust in God. While in the 1990s around 80 % attended worship services regularly, today only 51 % do so. In the Netherlands, in 1960 30 % of the population was a member of a protestant church. A new prognosis estimates that in 2020 only 4 % will belong to a protestant church. Then, only 28 % will be in contact with a Christian church at all. According to this study, in the Netherlands only two religious groups will remain on the long run – the Roman Catholic Church and Islam. The main idea of the following text is that only a personal faith will give Christianity the power to survive in society reigned by secularisation. Psychotherapy can help people to internalize Christian values into a personal faith by giving faith an individual face. The young discipline psychotherapy in its turn can learn a lot of the old tradition of spiritual direction (Schreurs, 2002; Benner, 2004; Moon & Sperry 2004).