Between Ethics and Essence
Exploring the Spiritual Closet in Therapeutic Practice
An in-person CPD workshop for qualified and trainee counsellors and psychotherapists
Sunday 11th October 2026
2pm – 6pm
Elephant Rooms, Draycott, DE72 3PP
What happens when your professional ethics and your deeper essence feel like they’re disconnected?
Many therapists hold spiritual beliefs, practices, sensitivities, or lived experiences that deeply inform who they are- yet feel unsure, hesitant, or even unsafe bringing this part of themselves into their professional identity.
You might worry about being judged, misunderstood, seen as “less professional”, or crossing ethical lines.
You may find yourself separating parts of yourself, editing your language, or wondering where the boundary is between ethical therapeutic practice and authentic self-expression.
This workshop is an invitation to explore that tender space with honesty, care, curiosity, and professional grounding.
This CPD is for the therapist who has ever wondered…
“Can I bring my spiritual part into the room, whilst holding my ethics, modality and professionalism to a high standard?”
Between Ethics and Essence is a reflective, experiential CPD workshop for qualified and trainee counsellors and psychotherapists who are curious about the “spiritual closet” in therapeutic practice.
Together, we will explore the places where spirituality, ethics, identity, fear, visibility, client work, and professional belonging meet.
This is not about telling therapists how spiritual they should be- or encouraging anyone to impose spiritual beliefs into therapy. It is about opening thoughtful, ethical conversation around an often-unspoken part of therapist identity and therapeutic practice.
Whether you identify as spiritual, spiritually curious, sceptical, unsure, or not spiritual at all, there is space for you here.
Why this workshop matters
For many therapists, spirituality is not a neat add-on. It may be part of their lived experience, cultural background, personal healing, worldview, sense of meaning, or way of understanding human suffering and growth.
Yet within therapeutic training and professional spaces, spirituality can feel difficult to speak about.
Therapists may fear being perceived as unprofessional, unethical, “woo,” unsafe, or outside the mainstream. For some, this creates a quiet internal split: the therapist they are professionally, and the person they are privately.
This workshop creates a thoughtful space to explore that split — not with pressure, performance, or certainty, but with grounded reflection, ethical awareness, and shared conversation.
What you’ll gain from attending
1. Greater ethical clarity around spirituality in therapeutic practice
You will have space to reflect on the difference between personal spirituality, therapist identity, client material, disclosure, influence, and ethical responsibility. This can help you feel more confident navigating spiritual themes without losing your professional grounding.
2. A deeper understanding of your own “spiritual closet”
Through guided reflection, meditation, journaling, and discussion, you will explore where you may hide, edit, question, or compartmentalise spiritual parts of yourself within professional spaces- and what that costs you and your client work.
3. A more integrated sense of professional identity
You will leave with more language, self-awareness, and inner permission to consider what authenticity could look like for you as a therapist- in a way that honours ethics, client autonomy, and your own essence.
From hidden tension to grounded integration
Before the workshop
❎You feel cautious or conflicted about naming spirituality in relation to your therapeutic work.
❎ You worry that other professionals may judge you, dismiss you, or question your credibility.
❎ You keep parts of yourself separate: the professional therapist on one side, the spiritual or meaning-making self on the other.
❎ You feel unsure about where the line is between authenticity, disclosure, influence, and client-centred practice.
❎ You may feel isolated, hesitant, or unsupported in exploring spiritual themes in therapeutic spaces.
❎ You long for professional spaces where spirituality can be discussed without shame, defensiveness, or performance.
After the workshop
✅ You feel clearer about how spirituality can be explored ethically, thoughtfully, and without imposing beliefs within your practice.
✅ You feel less alone and more resourced by being in conversation with therapists navigating similar questions.
✅ You begin to imagine a more integrated professional identity where ethics and essence can exist together.
✅ You have more reflective language to help you think critically about boundaries, power, consent, client autonomy, and context.
✅ You experience thoughtful peer connection, shared reflection, and a more compassionate understanding of your own position.
✅ You leave with renewed confidence, curiosity, and a sense of possibility for your work and professional identity.
Between Ethics and Essence is a four-hour, in-person CPD workshop held at Elephant Rooms, Draycott.
It combines teaching, personal reflection, guided meditation/visualisation, journaling, sharing circle, pair work, and ethical discussion.
The workshop will be facilitated by Sukhi and Sian, two therapists bringing their own experiences, reflections, challenges, research, and professional perspectives to the conversation.
Rather than giving you a rigid formula, this CPD offers something more meaningful: a contained reflective space to explore your own relationship with spirituality, ethics, visibility, and therapeutic identity.
You will be invited to consider:
What does the “spiritual closet” mean in therapeutic practice?
What fears or assumptions keep therapists quiet?
How do ethics guide us when spiritual themes arise?
How do we honour client autonomy while also being honest about who we are?
What might more integrated, ethical practice look like?
What becomes possible when therapists feel less alone in this conversation?
What will you get?
Arrival, grounding and welcome
We begin by settling into the space, arriving gently, and creating a reflective environment where thoughtful conversation can unfold.
This helps establish safety, presence, and connection before moving into deeper material.
Reflections from Sukhi & Sian
Sukhi & Sian will share from their own journey, exploring the challenges, questions, ethical considerations, and wider professional conversations connected to spirituality in therapeutic practice.
This section supports you to think about the “spiritual closet” not as a private failing, but as part of a larger professional and cultural context. It will also help illuminate some of the common themes therapists face, including ethical commitment, professional uncertainty, visibility, belonging, and the need for more open conversation.
Spiritual Closet Exploration
Through meditation and visualisation, you will be guided into a personal reflective exploration of your own “spiritual closet.”
This is a chance to notice what you hide, protect, question, minimise, or long to express and what you might need to create safety and permission.
Quiet Reflection and Journaling
You will be given space to journal, reflect, and make meaning of what has emerged for you.
This helps you move from concept into personal insight, giving you time to listen inward rather than rushing into action.
Sharing Circles: Ethics & Essence
In circle, we will give voice to the challenges, questions, fears, and ethical tensions that therapists may experience. We will explore vision, possibility, integration, and pathways forward.
This is where we name the parts that are often left unsaid: fear of judgement, concerns about professionalism, uncertainty around boundaries, and the desire to practise safely and where you will be invited to consider what authenticity could look like when held with care, humility, consent, and ethical awareness.
Pair Work & Consolidation
You will have an opportunity to deepen your reflections in pairs, helping you integrate the learning and begin shaping what this means for your own practice.
Closing
We will close with takeaways, intentions, and reflections on any shifts that have occurred during the afternoon.
You will leave with more clarity, connection, and confidence for your own ongoing reflection.
The opportunity: to stop splitting yourself in two
This workshop is an invitation to explore whether your therapist self and your spiritual self really need to be at odds.
For many therapists, the question is not, “How do I bring spirituality into every session?”
The deeper question is:
“How do I become more honest, grounded, and integrated in who I am- while holding my ethics, keeping the client’s needs, autonomy, and safety at the centre?”
That is the space we will be exploring.
Is This You?
This CPD may be for you if:
You are a qualified or trainee counsellor, psychotherapist, or therapeutic practitioner.
You have ever felt hesitant to speak about spirituality in professional spaces.
You hold spiritual beliefs or practices privately but feel unsure how they fit with your therapeutic identity.
You feel cautious about being judged by peers, supervisors, tutors, or professional communities.
You care deeply about ethics, boundaries, client autonomy, and professional responsibility.
You are curious about how therapists can become more spiritually integrated without becoming directive or imposing.
You want to be in reflective conversation with others who are willing to explore the nuance.
You sense there is more to say here, but you have not always had the space or language to say it.
Imagine leaving with…
✅A clearer understanding of what the spiritual closet means for you.
✅More confidence in exploring spirituality through an ethical lens.
✅A deeper sense that you are not alone in these questions.
✅More language for supervision, reflection, client work, marketing, identity, and professional belonging.
✅A renewed relationship with your own therapeutic and spiritual essence- not as something that threatens your ethics, but as something that can be held thoughtfully alongside them.
Date, Time & Location
🗓️ Sunday 11th October 2026
⏰ 2pm-6pm
📍 Elephant Rooms, Draycott, DE72 3PP
💷 Investment/Exchange: £77 (Use code 'EARLYBIRD20' for 20% off - valid until Monday 24th August)
FAQs
Yes. This is a continuing professional development workshop designed for counsellors and psychotherapists. Please check your own professional body’s requirements for how you record and evidence CPD.
Yes. This workshop is suitable for trainee counsellors and psychotherapists, as well as qualified practitioners. For trainees, it may offer a helpful reflective space to explore identity, ethics, and professional development as you continue forming your therapeutic self.
This workshop will not offer legal advice or rigid rules for every possible situation. Instead, it will support reflective ethical thinking around spirituality, professional identity, client autonomy, boundaries, and context.
The intention is to deepen your ethical awareness, not replace supervision, professional guidance, or your own responsibility as a practitioner.
No. This workshop is not a training in using tarot, reiki, astrology, numerology, energy work, or any other specific spiritual modality with clients.
Although this might come into discussions, the focus is on reflection, ethics, identity, visibility, and the “spiritual closet” in therapeutic practice.
You may wish to bring a notebook and pen for journaling and reflection. You are also welcome to bring anything that helps you feel comfortable in a reflective in-person setting. Other than that, come as you are, with an open heart and mind.
Meet Your Hosts
Sukhi's mission is to empower people to live authentic, soul-led lives – being true to themselves. She does this by offering a Psycho-Spiritual approach to counselling.
Her background includes working in the charity sector as a therapist and leader, supporting Sexual Violence and Children's Mental Health organisations. She believes in Holistic wellbeing, attending to the Mind, Body and Spirit, integrating counselling/talk-therapy with energy healing and numerology.
She empowers therapists and space holders to develop their spiritual professional identity within the counselling profession, supporting practitioners to come out of their 'spiritual closet' and embrace their unique spiritual gifts.
Sian is a psycho-spiritual therapist and founder of The Soulshine Therapist. Working in private practice, she supports spiritually minded women who feel disconnected, overwhelmed, or quietly unfulfilled to return to themselves with more compassion, self-trust, and inner steadiness.
Her work weaves together therapeutic depth, grounded spirituality, and holistic practices including Reiki, Tarot, and Astrology.
Alongside her client work, Sian is passionate about helping therapists feel more confident, ethical, and authentic when bringing spirituality into private practice. Through her workshops, writing, research, and podcast Back To Self, she offers a warm, thoughtful, and grounded voice for therapists and clients seeking more soul-inclusive ways of living.
Sian also serves as an Executive Member of the BACP Spirituality Division.
A Final Invitation
You can keep navigating these questions alone: quietly editing yourself, wondering what is acceptable, and trying to work out where spirituality belongs in your professional identity.
Or you can give yourself one afternoon to explore it in a thoughtful, ethical, supportive space with other therapists who are willing to ask the same nuanced questions.
Between Ethics and Essence is not about becoming more spiritual, more visible, or more certain overnight.
It is about beginning a more honest conversation.
One where ethics are not abandoned.
One where essence is not hidden.
One where therapist identity can be explored with care, courage, humility, and depth.
If this speaks to something in you, we would love to welcome you.
Book your place for Between Ethics and Essence
Between Ethics & Essence
An in-person CPD workshop for psychotherapists and counsellors wanting to explore the spiritual closet in therapeutic practice.
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