Spirituality and Social Work

Social work training has long emphasised the importance of evidence-based practice and the role of spirituality in the lives of service users has tended to be sidelined. Yet, it is clear that many people begin to explore their spirituality precicely at times when they are trying to make sense of difficult life circumstances or experiences and may come into contract with social workers. In this path-breaking book Beth Crisp discusses how spirituality can be sensitively incorporated into social work practice. She considers spirituality as an aspect of lived experience, a perspective that she argues breaks down any mystique and suspicion of the language of spirituality by using language and experiences with which most people can identify, even when either practitioners or service users have no religious affiliation or no shared religious background.