Abstract
This book draws heavily on Cunningham’s previous work, Integrating Spirituality in Clinical Social Work Practice: Walking the Labyrinth (Boston: Pearson, 2012), a textbook that helps students apply the Council on Social Work Education’s competencies and behaviors. With a feminist focus and some additional material, Walking the Labyrinth became Dancing the Labyrinth, a coauthored book that is written for counselors and other mental health professionals, ministers, spiritual directors, educators, and general readers who are interested in women’s spirituality.
Cunningham and de Saussure define spirituality as follows: “It shapes how we find meaning and purpose in our lives.…It is how we make sense out of big questions such as why was I born? What is the purpose of my life?” (p. 5). Spiritual people may have a commitment to a particular cause, a connection to nature, and/or a belief in God or a higher power.
After offering a critique of the hero’s journey metaphor, which is prominent in male spirituality, the authors introduce other metaphors to describe women’s spirituality, including the dance, the web, the quilt, and the labyrinth. The authors also critique James Fowler’s faith development model, first introduced in his 1981 book Stages of Faith, and propose alternative stages of women’s development, including alienation and disconnection, awakening to the feminine, discovering one’s self, finding the divine, dropping into stillness (i.e., the center of the labyrinth), and reclaiming. These stages are rarely sequential or linear, but are often circular. For women, the spiritual is found not within a hero’s journey but within their relationships and everyday activities. Women’s spirituality relies on intuition and acknowledges the interconnection of all living things and the immanent nature of God. The authors describe feminist conceptualizations of the divine and some images of the sacred feminine (e.g., Divine Mother, Sophia/Wisdom, Black Madonna, and Marian devotion), which complement and balance the traditional sacred masculine. Overall, the book gives merely an overview of spirituality, which can be frustrating to some readers.
The authors devote a chapter to life transitions and the impact they have on women’s spirituality. Each stage of life begins with a period of discomfort, but as we let go of the old, something new emerges. The authors reframe the “midlife crisis” into an opportunity for great spiritual growth, which includes letting go, discernment, acceptance, and the emergence of the new. Within this chapter, the authors most successfully weave feminist writers (e.g., Joan Chittister, Joyce Rupp) with the personal stories of the women they interviewed. These rich, personal stories are lacking in other parts of the book.
Because suffering and trauma may greatly impact a woman’s spirituality, the authors devote several chapters to these topics. While some women’s spirituality may be strengthened by suffering and trauma, other women may lose their spiritual moorings. It is very important for therapists to consider the topic of forgiveness and to read more deeply on this topic. In addition, because many women may fear their own or other’s anger and power, the authors devote a chapter to consider how spirituality can help reframe anger and power, so that women not only learn effective ways to deal with their anger but also strengthen their relationships and embrace their own power to become active agents of their own lives and to help change society.
Mainstream feminism and spiritual paths are described and critiqued. Other spiritualities, such as womanist, mujerista, and spirita theology, are described only briefly. Further explication of these spiritualities is greatly needed, as is further discussion of the diversity of thought within Asian feminism(s), Jewish feminism(s), and Muslim feminism(s). Acknowledging that some women seek alternative paths, the authors include a chapter that describes mysticism and New Age and earth-based spiritualities.
Perhaps of most interest to professionals, the book includes three chapters on treatment approaches and practical advice, including mindfulness practices, narrative therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy, creative arts (e.g., drawing, painting, and collage), dreamwork, sitting meditation, walking meditation, the empty-chair technique, and writing exercises (e.g., spiritual journals, spiritual biographies, spiritual time lines, and spiritual genograms). The final chapter discusses spirituality and the therapist, including countertransference and vicarious trauma and meaninglessness.
In addition to some of the shortcomings mentioned above, the book is, at times, repetitive. Finally, lesbian/gay/bi-sexual/trans/queer (LGBTQ) spiritualities are not discussed. Rather than balancing “masculine” spiritualities with “feminist” ones, queer spiritualities seek to deconstruct binary worldviews in order to create more inclusive worldviews. In spite of these shortcomings, the book is an important contribution to the integration of spirituality into social work practice.
