Spiritual Interventions and Attachment: Seven Models for Clergy, Lay Ministers, and Mental Health Professionals

Author(s) : Geoff Goodman

Book Details

Publisher : Routledge
Published : February 2026
Cover : Paperback
Category :
Attachment Theory
Category 2 :
Counselling
Catalogue No : 98482
ISBN 13 : 9781041019510
ISBN 10 : 1041019513

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Spiritual Interventions and Attachment offers a variety of models of lay minister-driven spiritual interventions to which clergy from diverse religious backgrounds might consider referring their congregants. Each chapter reviews a specific model, providing a history, description, inclusion and exclusion criteria, training requirements, and a clinical illustration. The author also provides a critique of each model using attachment theory as the organizing framework.

All these models are designed to ease the overwhelming burden of clergy, who are unable to provide appropriately matched pastoral care to all their congregants who experience spiritual and emotional struggles. University course instructors, clergy, chaplains, pastoral counselors, lay ministers, and mental health professionals will benefit from this insightful book.

Reviews & Endorsements
Table of Contents
About the Author(s)
Customer Reviews

Reviews and Endorsements

Let’s be real: pastoral care can feel like trying to stop a flood with a paper towel. We weren’t meant to carry every burden alone. This book is a lifeline for clergy who know they’re human and still want to serve with wisdom and love. Geoff Goodman doesn’t give us more guilt about what we can’t do. He gives us companions, tools, and models that remind us care isn’t a solo act. It’s a sacred collaboration. And Goodman reminds us, there are collaborators already waiting...trained, trusted, and ready to help.
Tony Sundermeier, senior pastor, First Presbyterian Church of Atlanta

Geoff Goodman brings his considerable expertise in attachment theory to examine seven different approaches to spiritual care, how each approach might affect a care receiver’s experience of God, and how that relational experience with God changes everything. This work will be helpful to clergy, spiritual directors, psychotherapists, and others, professional and not, who care about helping other people develop spiritually.
Russell Siler Jones, ThD, LCMHCS, author of Spirit in Session: Working with your Client's Spirituality (and Your Own) in Psychotherapy

Geoff Goodman has brought a fresh look to spiritually integrated work through the lens of attachment theory. Clergy and mental health professionals would do well to add this book to their professional shelves!
Carol ZA McGinnis, PhD, SIP, BC-TMH, NCC, LCPC (MD), professor of counseling, Messiah University

1. Introduction

Part 1: Models of Spiritual Intervention Conducted by Lay Ministers
2. Stephen Ministry: Carrying Each Other’s Burdens
3. Spiritual Direction: An Invitation to the Practice of Contemplation 4. 12-Step Programs: Surrendering to the God of Our Understanding
5. Godly Play: Suffer the Little Children to Come unto Me

Part 2: Models of Spiritual Intervention Conducted by Licensed Professionals
6. Using Drawing in a Spirituality Group to Discuss Mental Representations of God
7. Spiritually Integrated Psychotherapy: Introducing Spirituality and Working Through Spiritual Struggles
8. Attachment-Informed Psychotherapy: Transforming Attachment Relationships to a Higher Power and to Parents
9. Final Reflections

About the Author(s)

Geoff Goodman, is Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences in the Emory University School of Medicine and Associate Professor of Psychology and Spiritual Care in the Emory University Candler School of Theology in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. He holds board certifications in clinical psychology and psychoanalysis from the American Board of Professional Psychology.

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