Feedback from participants was gathered in several ways including action sociometry continua at the workshop, follow-up e-mails, and 47 telephone interviews conducted 1 – 6 months after the workshop. The following themes and patterns emerged out of the feedback we received.
On the Readers’ Theatre Scripts:
- Recognition of the challenges inherent in ‘pioneering’ new ideas from within an institution – insider/outsider issues even for those on the inside
- Admiration and gratitude for those who had ‘pioneered’ the collaboration between spirituality and counseling in Scotland
- Disappointment that there weren’t more multifaith stories and/or stories broader than Christianity shared
On the Workshops:
- The importance of a safe community, acceptance, and belonging in exploring and sharing personal and collective experiences of spirituality and counselling
- Significance of identity in these explorations
- Importance of being nonjudgmental
- Thought-provoking and inspiring
- Desire for more time to share personal stories and talk with colleagues
- Insightful learning opportunity
- A sense of life’s journey and of how people grow and change
- What a privilege it is to hear another’s story
- Realisation that people bring their own prejudices, whether about counselling or about religion or spirituality
- Some remaining skepticism and disappointment in the Christian religious language
On Their Own Counselling Practice:
- Counselling as a spiritual practice of loving and caring for people
- Connection with the word ‘call’ as something to do with meaning, purpose, and the ‘Life Force’, as well as something ‘religious’
- The importance of intention and purpose in counselling and in spirituality