Talking Therapy:Using Readers' Theatre to Dialogue about Counselling, Psychotherapy and Pastoral Care in Scotland's Changing Landscape of Faith

In this follow-on project we will use an innovative technique, known as readers' theatre, to engage in knowledge exchange with counselling, psychotherapy and pastoral care practitioners and lay people. Our original AHRC-funded research explored the interplay between counselling, psychotherapy and religion in Scotland from 1945-2000. The stories that emerged are little known by contemporary practitioners. Key findings include the influence of religious thought on significant Scottish psychotherapeutic thinkers and the importance of churches and church figures in founding many of the counselling and psychotherapy services currently perceived as secular.

One of the objectives for our original project was to engage in dialogue with a professional audience of psychotherapists, counsellors, clergy, and pastoral workers through two internally hosted conferences and a series of external events hosted by non-academic bodies. We were successful in achieving this objective, attracting a large number of practitioners from a range of faiths (and of no faith) to our presentations. However, our achievements in this area and the feedback we received merely highlighted the extent of the unmet demand for engaging in dialogue on these issues. Practitioners mentioned two main reasons for their interest in our project:

1) counsellors and psychotherapists reported a lack of opportunities to discuss issues of faith with peers. In addition, they frequently mentioned some hesitation in bringing up faith in professional contexts.

2) members of faith communities reported a lack of opportunities to discuss the interface and overlap between pastoral care, spiritual direction, spiritual counselling, counselling and psychotherapy.

Our readers' theatre workshops will provide opportunities for members of these communities, as well as for interested members of the general public, to engage in such discussions in a creative and supportive environment. Through partnering with COSCA (Counselling and Psychotherapy in Scotland), The British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy and the Scottish Inter Faith Council, we will reach practitioners who would be unlikely to come to the sorts of research events at which academics typically present their findings. By engaging in dialogue around these issues we will expand our own knowledge about the roles faith and spirituality play in the lives and professional practices of contemporary practitioners.

Readers' theatre entails "the coming together of two or more people to engage in the reading aloud and simultaneous listening of a conversation that has been scripted" (Cueva 2010, 3). It has been used to engage the public in dialogue on ethics, and to stimulate discussion on difficult or taboo subjects. In our project, in partnership with the Scottish Storytelling Centre, we will develop thirty-minute scripts using our archival and life history interview research. At our workshops, participants will be invited to read these scripts aloud, this will be followed by a discussion on the issues mentioned above. We will also produce an "exhibition" at St Mungo Museum of Religion and Society, enabling members of the public to engage in spontaneous readings of the scripts and to record their responses. Scripts will also be made available on-line through our website: www.theologyandtherapy.div.ed.ac.uk

We anticipate this project will extend the pathways to impact of our original findings, meet unmet needs in practitioner communities and deepen our understandings of how knowledge exchange might be done creatively in a way that respects the narrative nature of our original research data and invites participants to engage empathetically with view points that may differ significantly from their own.

Cueva, M (2010) Readers' Theatre as Cancer Education: An Organic Inquiry in Alaska Awakening Possibilities in a Living Spiral of Understanding. Journal of Cancer Education, 25, 3-8

This project seeks to achieve impact by enhancing understandings of diversity, thereby contributing to improvements in quality of life and in the effectiveness of services and the quality of care provided in the public, charitable and private sectors. Impact will be achieved by working with practitioners in the fields of counselling, psychotherapy and pastoral care, together with interested members of the general public, as follows.

1) The number of people outside the academic community who are familiar with the role religion and spirituality have played in the development of counselling and psychotherapy in Scotland will increase through participating in the workshops we run and attending the exhibition, as well as through engagement with on-line materials, all of which will be tracked.

2) Participants in our knowledge exchange workshops will use our materials, along with group discussion, to shift and even reframe their understandings of their own experiences, identities and practices. To assess this, with participants' permission, we will audio-record and analyse the discussions.

3) A small but significant group of counsellors and psychotherapists will be better prepared to discuss religion and spirituality in professional contexts, and to deal with related issues when they are brought up in therapy sessions. We will assess this outcome by analysing discussions and through a follow-up questionnaire.

4) A small but significant group of practitioners will have a deeper understanding of the interface between counselling, psychotherapy and pastoral care and will be better equipped to make decisions regarding referrals to other types of care for their clients. We hope that pastoral care practitioners will be better able to assess their own skill requirements and be better prepared to assess and access support from outside their religious communities when needed. We also hope that counsellors and psychotherapists will have a clearer idea of what pastoral care might have to offer their clients. We will assess this outcome by analysing discussions and through a follow-up questionnaire.

5) Through the above four means, the reach and impact of the alternative narratives uncovered in our original research project will be extended. More people will know more about the historical interweaving of religion, spirituality, counselling and psychotherapy in Scotland and this story will be used by people in giving meaning to their pastoral and professional identities, making decisions and discussing their pastoral and professional practices. We hope that through this extended reach, public understandings of pastoral care and the professions of counselling and psychotherapy will be enriched. As part of this, materials and workshops developed during the course of this project will be handed over to partner organizations so that they and their affiliates can continue to make use of them. These materials will also be made more generally available through our website. These long-term impacts cannot be assessed during the tenure of this project.