How do you react when someone starts talking about God? What do you do when you feel you can’t agree with a client’s beliefs? What is your relationship to uncertainty and the unexplainable? If talking about a client’s faith can lead to better outcomes, why can it be so difficult?
In this compassionate, engaging, and deeply human book, Kate Graham draws on her extensive experience as a psychotherapist and Quaker to explore these and other dilemmas. Three characters: Mystery, Reason, and Hope guide us through the book, tussling over their differences and frustrations with each other as they search for understanding.
Kate draws on her own experience and interviews with other therapists and people of faith. She shares her experiences through largely fictional client stories, brought to life with humour and honesty. We join her in her vulnerability as she navigates complex relationships, illustrating both ideas for good practice and her learning from mistakes. Relationships and connection run through the book: with the natural world, with ourselves, with clients, and with the “wider than human”. She celebrates the mystery of psychotherapeutic work, the unexplainable alongside practical ideas that can be integrated into practice straight away.
Psychotherapy, like faith, involves exploring inner worlds and facing wildness, uncertainty, and not-knowing. There is more common ground here than our initial training may have revealed. There is practical guidance about the where, when, and how you might ask questions and cope with the answers. Reflection questions at the end of each chapter help the reader develop skills and insight and point to further reading
At a deeper level the reader is challenged to explore their own beliefs and what this can mean for their work in the therapy room and outside. This helps you to consider how you connect your inner world to the outer world, how you might act for love and trust in an increasingly fearful world, and the support you need to do this. Mystery, Hope and Reason: Faith in the Therapy Room is a book that will engage, uplift, and inspire you.
Kate Graham is a UKCP-accredited psychotherapist, supervisor, and Quaker living in Ilkley, Yorkshire. Before becoming a psychotherapist, Kate enjoyed a wide-ranging career incorporating charity fundraising and management, international development, evaluation, policy making, and coaching. With two partners, she created the Outcomes Star to measure how people change in social projects, a model then replicated over many sectors. Kate has always been interested in our internal journeys, how we change and grow, and how we bring a myriad of life threads together to form a coherent whole. She loves walking, fiddle playing, and swimming in the Wharfe.
Nick Totton, body psychotherapist, supervisor, and trainer; full member, European Association for Body Psychotherapy –
‘Reading this book involved a very enjoyable imaginary argument with Kate Graham, over everything from the precise meanings of words to the overarching significance of hope, faith, and reason. I’m not sure which of us won the tussle, but it was certainly worth having! Graham writes beautifully and fluently, and states her positions with passion and incisiveness. They are often not the same as my positions – but so much the better.’
Margaret Benefiel, PhD, CEO of Executive Soul and Program Director of Soul of Leadership; author of ‘Crisis Leadership’ and ‘The Soul of a Leader’ –
‘The genius of this book lies in its respectful awe of both the therapeutic process and the power of faith, brilliantly presented through a dialogue among mystery, reason, and hope. A must-read for therapists and people of faith.’
Robin Shohet, editor of ‘Supervision as Spiritual Practice’ –
‘I welcome this book. It fills a space in psychotherapy that for too long has been relatively empty, namely the spiritual dimension of the work. The author gently, bravely and compellingly asks us to value mystery, the unknown, faith, love, and forgiveness. Through numerous case examples, honest self-disclosure and thought-provoking reflective questions at the end of each chapter, Kate Graham invites the reader, whether therapist or client, to lean into the sacred space that the therapeutic relationship can offer.’