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Frequently Asked Questions

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The Focus of Ignatian Spiritual Direction Is Discernment

Ignatian spiritual direction addresses what is in one’s daily life as one prays through life’s complex decisions and concerns and interprets one’s spiritual experiences in those everyday circumstances, to discover where God is leading one.

(Paraphrased from Fr. Joseph Tetlow, SJ, Handing on the Fire)

 

Is Spiritual Direction Therapy?

Yes and no. It is therapy for the soul: for today, for tomorrow, and for eternity. But it is not what the healthcare system today calls therapy, which also goes by the term counseling. There is an overlap in the skills used, while the focus and ends are different.

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What Are the Differences?

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• Psychotherapy is a problem-solving, clinically grounded form of care focused on emotional health and psychological well-being within a temporal framework. The work centers on an individual’s relationship with self and others, addressing symptoms, patterns, and functioning through assessment (or diagnosis), treatment planning, and evidence-based interventions. God is not part of the therapeutic dialogue, and goals are typically defined, measurable, and oriented toward resolution or stabilization within a set time frame.

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• Pastoral counseling is a faith-based, problem-solving approach to care that attends to the mind and soul in relationship with God and others. God is an explicit and active partner in the healing process. This form of care integrates psychological assessment and treatment protocols within the context of one’s faith tradition. Like psychotherapy, it involves assessment, planning, and treatment within a defined duration, but it also acknowledges both temporal goals and an eternal telos, holding emotional well-being within a broader spiritual horizon.

 

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• Spiritual direction focuses on the soul and its faculties (intellect, memory, will, and imagination), along with one’s desires and direction in life, both temporal and eternal, in relationship with God, others, and self. It is a distinct form of pastoral care in which two people come together to listen attentively to the quiet movements of the Holy Spirit, as one seeks growth in holiness and faithful response to God’s call. While it may employ skills familiar to counseling, such as attentive listening, discernment, and intentional practices (including prayer), its primary orientation is not problem-solving but the discernment of God’s will and His action of grace in one’s life. Healing and well-being often emerge as fruits of the process, while its ultimate horizon is eternal. Spiritual direction may also include elements of mentoring and spiritual formation as the relationship unfolds over time.

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• Mentoring: caring for the development of another to improve their external actions, with the companion acting as a coach.

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• Discipling: a process of instruction, with the companion as the transmitter of knowledge.

 

What Is the Training of a Spiritual Director?

Some spiritual directors have formal education, with advanced postgraduate credits (certificates) in spiritual direction from universities; some have short- or long-term study within an organization or parish; and some have no formal theological or pastoral education yet are called to a ministry of holy listening as companions.

Spiritual directors can be lay, religious, or ordained. They work in retreat houses, monasteries, or parishes as part of their regular duties, or in private practice. Many spiritual directors work part-time in this ministry and have degrees and training in other disciplines that may or may not be related to ministry, counseling, or religious formation. Increasingly, some now serve full-time.

 

Am I Looking for a Spiritual Director or a Spiritual Companion?

A trained spiritual director uses many of the skills of counseling to help one develop a conscious, intentional, and active relationship with Christ, integrating it within a formation model grounded in the Church’s teachings, along with an understanding of the stages of growth in the spiritual life, prayer, and human development.

A spiritual companion, like a spiritual director, walks alongside and accompanies another on their spiritual journey as a spiritual friend, yet has no formal training, or only limited training, for the roles of instructing, guiding, or counseling.

 

Are There Fees for Spiritual Direction?

Fees vary depending on the locale, the director’s level of training, and their ongoing formation costs. Those in full-time ministry at retreat centers receive stipends, and their organizations collect the fees. Directors who minister in parishes as employees generally do not charge, since direction is part of their service to their local church. All other spiritual directors collect fees directly from their directees.

 

A Response to a Question from a Directee

Dear Spiritual Director,

If spiritual direction is about helping one grow in one’s relationship with God, how can it help me, since I am uncomfortable sharing about my prayer life? For me, it is too personal and intimate.

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Dear Friend in Christ,

Prayer, as one’s encounter and relationship with God, is intimate between you and God alone, as it should always be.

In spiritual direction, what is shared is prayer as a method, a way handed down in our tradition to help one grow in one’s relationship with God. A spiritual director’s role is to:

• help one notice areas in their prayer life they may have overlooked

• offer practical considerations, such as help in organizing one’s time

• share different methods of prayer from the Church’s tradition

• help one listen for promptings and notice where they are coming from (the Holy Spirit or the “bad spirits”)

• teach about the discernment of spirits

• support one in noticing and sorting out distractions or attachments

• suggest tools to ease the normal wandering of the mind and increase attention and focus

• affirm how one is proceeding

You described a desire to grow in your prayer life. With that as your starting point, consider taking that desire to prayer to see what God has to say to you about it. The “questions to consider” I sent are there to help you notice distractions (such as normal daily issues, or those that He brings up for healing) or spiritual attachments, so that you may ask for the grace to be freed from them and continue to grow in Christ.

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I hope what I have written here helps. I do not yet know how familiar you are with the rules of discernment or with your experience in applying them; we can talk about that if you wish.

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If more comes up between sessions, I suggest to directees what I do with my own spiritual director: note things down as they come up. Then, before we come together, review your thoughts and experiences, and discern and decide what to share, what seems pertinent, or what needs a bit of clarification.

Until then, know you are in my prayers.

In Christ,
Karen

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