Connecting Soul, Spirit, Mind, and Body: A Collection of Spiritual and Religious Perspectives and Practices in Counseling

This edited volume presents spiritual and religious perspectives and practices that can be integrated into counseling, written by experts in the field. This edited text includes topics that may be unfamiliar to mental health professionals, yet are incredibly important for implementing diverse approaches with clients. Chapters include unique topics such as:

- Reiki
- Labyrinths
- Near-death experiences
- After-death communication
- Deathbed phenomena
- Intercessory prayer
- Native American medicine sweat
- Psychosynthesis
- Simplicity
- Running
- Qigong
- Ásatrú

"Connecting Soul, Spirit, Mind, and Body is like M & M candies. On the surface it appears one way - a simple and concise introduction to a wide range of spiritual practices. However, in the interior of the book are rich, well-edited chapters full of facts, stories, and a host of observations that are intriguing, interesting, and deep. Connecting links us to the ultimate and meaningful in a way that is enjoyable, scholarly, and unmatched by other works on religion and spiritual perspectives and practices." —Samuel T. Gladding, PhD, Wake Forest University

"Connecting Soul, Spirit, Mind, and Body addresses many diverse spiritual practices seldom presented in similar texts. Foster, Holden, and their contributors have provided us with a valuable addition to the literature on spirituality counseling." —Richard E. Watts, PhD, Sam Houston State University

Ryan D. Foster, PhD, LPC-S (TX), LPC (VA), NCC, CHST, is assistant professor and clinic coordinator in the Department of Counseling at Tarleton State University in Waco, Texas. His scholarly interests include the use of spiritual and transpersonal experiences in bereavement counseling. In addition, he has published on ethics in counselor education and humanistic sandtray therapy. He has served as a board member of the Association for Spiritual, Ethical, and Religious Values in Counseling, as assistant editor for the Journal of Near-Death Studies, and as an editorial review board member for Counseling and Values. Janice Miner Holden, EdD, LPC- S, LMFT, NCC, ACMHP, is professor and chair of the Department of Counseling and Higher Education at the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas. During 20 years as a counselor educator, Dr. Holden has focused her scholarly pursuits on the transpersonal perspective in counseling: the perspective that includes transpersonal experiences-those transcending the usual personal limits of space and/or time-and transpersonal development-functioning at levels that both include and transcend a sense of personal, individual identity. In particular, she has researched near-death experiences-the counseling needs of experiencers and what these experiences have to reveal about the nature of consciousness and meaning of life. She has served as president of the International Association for Near-Death Studies and as editor of the organization's scholarly peer-reviewed Journal of Near-Death Studies.