Spirituality is a “critical part” of counseling, according to veteran trainer Ron Kallmier.

“There is a deep cry in the human spirit for something outside themselves, for help outside themselves, for meaning outside themselves,” the Australian counselor told The Christian Post.

The former director of training at CWR, Kallmier is in Singapore training Christian counselors during a three-week course organized by CWR. The course is on the principles of biblical counseling and emphasizes the need for holistic treatment of the human personality. According to its model, the personality is comprised of spirituality, rationality, choices and behavior, emotions and the physical body.

Kallmier helped revise the course for the current generation.

In an interview with The Christian Post, he said people “cry out to God even when they’re not claiming to be Christians or [adherents of] any other religion,” he expressed from personal experience.

“In times of extreme of pain, they cry out, ‘God, help me’… and there seems to be something almost intuitive in the human spirit that does that,” he said. “Even though it can’t be measured empirically … there is something that we can call the human spirit, that core, that part of our being that hungers for something greater than ourselves.”

Earlier during a lecture, Kallmier, 67, pointed out that all counselors bring their worldview into their practice.

Explaining the limitations of secular counseling, he said in general, secular counselors “don’t see (spirituality) as a reality.”

Read More: http://www.christianpost.com/article/20100927/spirituality-a-critical-part-of-counseling-says-veteran-trainer/