ABSTRACT
Spirituality emerges in the midst of differences through respecting the journey of the other person.
Timothy Pedigo (personal communication) One of the disciplines that is helpful to my being a spiritually sen-
sitive counselor is spending a few moments before entering a session simply being aware of what I’m experiencing, paying special attention to the barriers that may keep me from being fully present with that particular client. These barriers usually have to do with preconceptions of who the client is. Sometimes the preconceptions emerge from my assessment of the client, especially if I have viewed the client through a category such as those in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). Other barriers exist about which we may be less aware-expectations we have of a client because she is a woman, or he is a man, because the client is elderly, or “only” an adolescent, or because of the sketchy information we have concerning racial or ethic background. This ritual helps me get beyond categorical thinking.
