Counselling and religious faith

This paper examines the relationship between how counsellors report working with religious faith in the consulting room and psychodynamic theory concerning religious faith. Drawing from the author's research, extracts from interviews with psychodynamic counsellors are offered in exploration of three theoretical themes. Two areas of tension and pressure that arose for co-researchers in responding to clients' religious faith are examined. The paper concludes with suggesting that, for the counsellors interviewed, theory, in the general rather than the particular, was integral to how they reflected upon their work, and that, for some, their identity as psychodynamic was problematic.