As stated earlier and from examining the above list, most people in a full blown spiritual emergency may not be functional, however, I have experienced many of these states myself and personally know many others that have as well and we attempted to “be normal”, or conduct business as usual through the experiences. This may be possible to accomplish when people are strongly motivated to serve others by staying as functional as possible or are burdened with the need to pay the bills and have no one to care for them while they go through the process. That coupled with the fact that so many experiencers will not divulge the full extent of their experiences to professionals for fear of having their experience pathologized and medicated it is very feasible a spiritually oriented or holistically oriented life coach that blends a healing technique with their practice may be approached by someone in spiritual emergency.
Potential Risks to the Client and Coach
As noted above the experiencer may potentially face the need for traditional psychiatric, and psychological assistance, medical assistance, counseling services, addiction recovery services, alternative healing modalities and practitioners, safe houses, and communities of like-minded people where they can be cared for while they process and integrate the experiences or the after effects of the experiences.
The Risks to the Client:
- Divorce or estrangement from friends, family, and community,
- Chronic depression and anxiety,
- Suicide,
- Substance abuse and addiction,
- Inability to work and loss of income,
- Homelessness, and
- Misdiagnosis
The Risks to the Coach
- Lawsuit for improper case management,
- Switch from coaching to counseling in the session,
- Switch from coaching to consultation in the session,
- The client may project a “Savior Archetype” onto the coach and ascribe specialness onto the coach, and
- The coach may take on a “Savior Archetypal Persona” or “Spiritual Guru” persona
Risk Management
The coach must be aware of their own ability to maintain professional boundaries and not accept a role of specialness, always guiding the client back to their own wisdom and spiritual connection. The coach must also be trained in how to know when to refer a client and it is strongly advised that if a coach is going to work within the framework of spiritual emergence they hire a supervisor that is trained in transpersonal phycology or spiritual emergence or has at least had training in the DSM-IV “Religious and Spiritual Problems” diagnosis and specific training on differential diagnosis of these conditions. A coach can go to the Grof’s Spiritual Emergence Network at to get a list of trained professionals by State
Having an intake form in your welcome packet that includes a statement that you are presenting yourself as a trained coach and not a mental health professional and having the client sign a copy is imperative in protecting yourself.
Listed below are some items to consider including on a disclosure page:
- A space for the client to reveal if they are taking any medications and are under the care of a mental health professional. Be sure to include space for them to disclose the name and phone number of the MHP and permission for you to contact them.
- An explanation that the coach is responsible for the process of coaching but the client is responsible for the outcome.
- That coaching is not offered as a substitute for mental health care.
- That you are not acting as a psychotherapist, and do not purport to offer mental health care.
- That you will maintain the confidentiality of your communications only to the extent defined by the laws of the states in which you reside.
- That they understand and agree that they are fully responsible for their well-being during coaching sessions, including their choices and decisions.
- That all comments and ideas offered by the coach are solely for the purpose of aiding them in achieving their defined goals.
- That they have the ability to give their informed consent, and are giving consent to the coach to assist them in achieving such goals.
- You may want to include a statement of release and waiver to law suit. An attorney should be contacted to help you write the release.
- A place at the bottom of the form that states they have read the statements above and that they understand and agree with the points made in the document and a place for the date and signature of the client
After designing a thorough disclosure form the next best risk management is approached by asking questions to determine if the client is ready for coaching. The following questions are specific to spiritual emergence and emergency. If you identify that you client may be in a state of spiritual emergence or emergency the following questions can help you discover if your client is ready for coaching and what other support services they may need.
In this way you will best help your client take advantage of these exceptional experiences.
- What areas of your life are functioning well?
- What areas of your life are not functioning well? (Be sure to ask them probing questions to find patterns, emotions, issues that need to be addressed).
- Can the client clearly define their goals for your coaching sessions together?
- Is the client currently capable of making decisions and following through? (Ask them to give you examples of recent decisions they have made and how they followed through and what the results were).
- Ask questions about what is working at a relatively functional level right now. Ask how do they know they are generally functional?
- Is the client grounded? If not, can they be coached into a grounded state? (note: many people in the beginning stages of pleasant and happy spiritual experiences do not want to be grounded. They may be experiencing relief from grief and long standing trauma or difficulties and are enjoying the relief and need to stay in this state for a while. Ask the client if they would be interested in learning how to maintain the state of expansion and peace and be grounded and integrated at the same time? If they are interested there are techniques to help the client move into that state gradually. Each client moves into that state at their own pace and it could take years to get there.)
- Share information about integration and ask them if they are interested or see a need for an area of integration.Is the client capable of seeing an opportunity in the midst of potential chaos?
Educating yourself about spiritual emergence and emergency is also paramount if you are going to work with this population. Information about training opportunities are listed in a later section of this paper and there are many reading resources listed at the end of this paper as well. Doing an internet search in your area for local training spiritual emergence programs and professionals is also suggested.
The Role and Qualities of the Coach
Most experiencers are compelled to find a place of deep inner peace if their experiences did not provide this for them and also to discover and/or complete purposeful and meaningful action in the world. The coach has a unique opportunity to help clients:
- Develop clarity of their own unique meaning of the experience,
- Develop trust in themselves and their experiences,
- Help them develop an understanding of the wisdom that can be gained from the experience,
- Help them identify and create an individuated integration (action) plan and,
- Help them build their team of helpers
The Qualities of the Coach
Not every spiritual coach or blended coaching practice that involves a healing modality may want to work with this population. The following is a list of considerations that ACISTE recommends a MHP consider before working with this population. These are as applicable to coaching as they are to MHPs.
Determine if this population is for you:
- Explore your own spirituality, and examine your beliefs and attitudes about death, a higher power, the afterlife, reincarnation, etc.
- Consider how open you are to exploring accounts that may include unusual phenomena such as encounters with aliens; distressing, hellish, or
frightening accounts; mystical experiences, psychic phenomena, New Age beliefs, fundamental religious beliefs and experiences, miracles, synchronicities, life in other dimensions; prophetic visions; etc.