Rev. Dr. Kelly Murphy Mason,
LCSW, Director of Programming at the Psychotherapy and Spirituality Institute
Adjunct Faculty at Columbia University Teachers College
By Petra Habur
As a licensed psychotherapist, faculty member, and Unitarian Universalist minister, Kelly Murphy Mason believes that there’s a lot to be gained from people integrating psychological insight with spiritual wisdom. That integration is just what she encourages in her clinical work with clients at the Psychotherapy and Spirituality Institute.
“The idea,” she explains, “is whatever people’s spiritual tradition may be, whether it’s an organized religion or a philosophy, that they are able to use that resource in order to expand their own sense of wellness and recovery and become a healthier member of a healthier community.”
Though Mason has always had a “Christian worldview,” she left Catholicism, the tradition in which she was raised, in her early twenties and spent a couple of years “church shopping” before finding a spiritual home in a Unitarian Universalist congregation. Mason describes the move more as a shift in affiliation than in mindset, though. “I’ve always had a model in Jesus and wisdom and sustenance from the Gospels,” she says. “So that didn’t change.” Indeed, Mason’s faith informed her later decision to become a clinical social worker.
Mason also credits Thomas Moore, a psychotherapist and former Catholic monk who now identifies himself as a “Zen Catholic”, for inspiring her vocational choices. Moore wrote that Jesus’ ministry primarily centered on teaching, preaching and healing. Mason took his suggestion that followers of Jesus similarly demonstrate a commitment to teaching, preaching and healing. Mason adds that she herself has “seen first-hand how healing psychotherapy can be for people.”
Although not everyone may share her views, Mason has found Christian communities in mainline Protestantism to be “pretty psychologically-minded” and willing to refer out those who need help to mental health services. The resistance often comes from the other side of the relationship.
“People in mental health settings are very reluctant to refer people to spiritual communities,” she says. Such reluctance reflects a basic failure to understand the important role that spiritual communities can play in preventative mental health and recovery. Furthermore, Mason contends, integrating spirituality and psychology does not require as great an ideological stretch as many assume, since the two schools of thought already share so much common ground.
For example, one well known concept in positive psychology is that when people do good, they feel good; Mason says she considers this insight a reiteration of religious teachings that have been around for millennia. Having the dignity to choose how to respond to significant occurrences in life and having the freedom to make meaning of those occurrences constitute some of the highest expression of personhood, not only in terms of psychological development, she adds, but also in terms of spiritual evolution.
“I absolutely believe that there is a spirit of healing in the world,” Mason says. “And part of what I do in psychotherapy is try to be in alignment with that and help my clients cultivate an awareness of where the spirit of healing is at work in their own lives.”
To continue the conversation with Kelly Murphy Mason, please join us on June 17th at the Social Work and Religious Diversity conference. Click here for information and registration.
