This article is a response to Helminiak's "Treating Spiritual Issues in Secular Psychotherapy" from the perspective of Wilber's integral psychology. The article consists of three sections: 1) a selective summary of integral psychology, including the perennial philosophy, ten levels of development, lines of development, temporary states, types of orientations, the self, and the four quadrants; 2) various conceptual issues ; and 3) usefulness to mental health practitioners (MHPs). Although Helminiak's endeavor to formulate a clear and functional definition of spirituality is commended, his claim of novelty is shown to be unwarranted. It is argued that Wilber's integral model is more comprehensive, clear, coherent, and helpful to MHPs.

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Daniel Helminiak's "Treating Spiritual Issues in Secular Psychotherapy" (2001) is a noble effort to address some of the most perplexing issues of psychology and psychotherapy today. In this work, he attempted to formulate a lucid and functional definition of spirituality. Building upon this definition, which he identified as humanistic in orientation, he presented a psychology of spirituality and offered a means by which it might be implemented in psychotherapy. We share Helminiak's desire to find a model of spiritual psychology that can guide mental health professionals in both their thinking and their practice, and we commend him for turning that desire into years of work aimed at developing a viable model.

A noteworthy aspect of Helminiak's (2001) spiritual psychology is his admonition that therapists reinterpret or outright reject certain pathological aspects of clients' religious beliefs. We applaud Helminiak's courage in this regard. The mental health profession's need for criteria to critically evaluate clients' spiritual material cannot be overemphasized. A spiritual psychology that wades in a mire of pluralistic relativism and unreflective acceptance seems destined to drown, immobilized by internal contradiction and indecision. We agree with Helminiak that the current flood of cultural pluralism and relativism in academia and the culture at large, in which all value judgments are eschewed (except, with ironic inconsistency, the valuing of not valuing over valuing), is anathema to any comprehensive understanding of what it means to be human. Values are an inescapable aspect of existence, and all values, worldviews, and cultures are not equal. If all values were equal, as Wilber (1995, 2000) has pointed out, the actions of Adolf Hitler, Ted Kozinski, and the KKK would be affirmed equally with those of Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King. We doubt the mental health profession is prepared to take this stand.

Helminiak (2001) asserted that before the mental health field is able competently to offer the services he proposed, the human sciences must undergo a "radical reorientation....until psychology addresses the 'big questions' about the meaning of life...psychology cannot pretend to deal with whole human beings, let alone spirituality" (p. 14). We agree. We depart from Helminiak in our belief that the basis for such a reorientation has already been offered in the professional mental health literature in the work of Ken Wilber (1999a), to whom Helminiak (2001) pejoratively referred as the "archguru of transpersonal psychology" (p. 17).

Thus, our appreciation and respect for Helminiak's (2001) efforts to develop a spiritual psychology for the mental health profession are outweighed by our overriding reaction that his model provides a far less comprehensive approach than does Wilber's (1999a) integral psychology model. We came to Helminiak's work with a background in integral psychology, and we approached his work with the question of whether it added to, or even might more comprehensively substitute for, the integral perspective. Our answer on both accounts is, essentially, no. Whereas Wilber's integral perspective encompasses, clarifies, and affirms Helminiak's views as well as numerous phenomena that Helminiak addressed incidentally or not at all, Helminiak's (p. 17) outright rejection of Wilber's model shows that, conversely, Helminiak's model does not encompass the integral perspective. We value the broadest possible approach to spiritual psychology because it seems better suited to account for the experiences of all people across cultures and throughout history; consequently, we opt to continue to use the integral perspective as our guiding model. However, we want to repeat that the integral model does not reject but, rather, affirms much of Helminiak's model as having some applicability for, but only for, the level of human experience it addresses. Because Wilber's integral perspective subsumes Helminiak's, the integral model would appear to offer mental health professionals a more complete framework with which to conceptualize and work with the varieties of spiritual experiences and issues that clients might bring to counseling.

Readers interested in Wilber's (1999a) integral psychology are invited to read the following section in which we summarize the integral perspective. To do justice to Wilber's (1999a) extensive model, we must devote considerable space to a summary of it, yet even then it will be considerably condensed. Interested readers are encouraged to consult the references for elaboration. Following the summary, we address how the integral perspective compares to Helminiak's in a discussion organized into two sections: various conceptual issues and usefulness to mental health professionals. It is our hope that, upon reaching the end of this article, the reader will understand our sense of how Helminiak's view fits into the integral perspective.

Overview of Wilber's Integral Psychology

For Wilber (1999a), the most elegant yet comprehensive view of human development includes at least five phenomena: levels of development, lines of development, temporary states, types of orientations through the developmental lines, and a self that navigates, balances, and integrates the preceding four phenomena. Wilber conceptualized these components in a model consisting of four quadrants, or four distinct perspectives that are irreducible to one another: the intentional, the behavioral, the cultural, and the social. These topics will be elaborated below.

In Wilber's quest to formulate "a truly integral philosophy, a believable, if initial, world philosophy" (2000, p. xxiii), he has drawn on the wisdom of numerous sources, from ancient to contemporary. He described his own thinking as having evolved through four phases: I) romantic; II) unidirectional invariate evolutionary developmental; III) subdivision of development into lines, levels, states, and types; and IV) situating development in the context of all four quadrants resulting in an all line, all level, all quadrant, integral approach. Some scholars (Rothberg & Kelly, 1998; Schwartz, 1995) have hailed Wilber's integral perspective as honoring and including more knowledge and truth than any previous philosophy.

Perennial Philosophy

Wilber's work is grounded in many branches of knowledge, Western and Eastern, metaphysical and scientific, religious and secular, ancient to contemporary. The conceptual formulation that best captures these seemingly diverse perspectives and that most pervades Wilber's work is the perennial philosophy (Huxley, 1944; Schumacker, 1977; Smith 1976, 1992; Trungpa, 1988). "Perennial" refers to the remarkable consistence with which this philosophy has emerged across human cultures and throughout human history, suggesting its universality.

One of the core concepts of the perennial philosophy is the Great Chain of Being, a model whereby the universe is organized in different but continuous levels: from the most gross, fundamental, nonconscious, and limited; to the most subtle, significant, conscious, and inclusive. The lowest level is characterized exclusively by a relative reality of ever-changing conditions, the highest by realization of an Absolute, Eternal Reality. These levels emerge in an invariant order: matter - life - mind - soul - spirit.

More accurate than the metaphor of a chain or ladder is that of a series of nested, concentric spheres with each successive sphere both including and exceeding the preceding sphere (see Figure 1). Thus, out of matter emerges life, out of life emerges mind, and so forth. Each successive stage includes the qualities of the previous stage -- life includes matter; mind includes life -- while adding its own unique and emergent qualities -- life can reproduce itself, is usually mobile, and is at least minimally aware of its environment, whereas matter is not; mind can reflect on life and its own activity, whereas the body (life) cannot (Wilber, 1997).

Figure 1. The Great Nest of Being. Spirit is both the highest level (causal) and the nondual Ground of all levels. Reprinted from Wilber, K. (2000). Integral psychology. Boston: Shambhala, p. 6.

The series of spheres constitute a particular kind of hierarchy. Each sphere is a holon: simultaneously a complete whole at one level and a part of the next level. Thus the sequence of spheres is a holarchy -- a hierarchy composed of holons. Holarchies exist everywhere in nature: atoms are wholes that are parts of molecules, which are wholes that are parts of cells, which are wholes that are parts of organs, and so forth. Wilber (1997) posited that "all developmental and evolutionary sequences that we are aware of proceed in large measure by hierarchization" (p. 41).

The concept of hierarchy is currently out of favor, largely because most people seem to equate normal, "actualization" hierarchies found everywhere in nature and complex systems, with what Wilber (2000) has called "pathological" or "domination" hierarchies in which "one holon assumes agentic dominance to the detriment of all. This holon doesn't assume it is both a whole and a part, it assumes it is the whole, period" (p. 31). It may help readers to know that the term "hierarchy" was introduced originally by the Christian contemplative Saint Dionysius and referred to "governing one's life by spiritual principles"; hiero- means sacred or holy, and - arch means rule or governance (Wilber, 1997, pp. 39-40). Inherent in this original meaning is the constant reminder that one's current developmental level is both a whole and a part of a larger whole.

Founded in the perennial philosophy, Wilber's integral model provides a nested scaffolding of concentric spheres within which to situate the entire spectrum of consciousness -- from matter, to life, to mind, to soul, all the way to realization of Ultimate Spirit/Reality/Consciousness. More Spirit/Reality/Consciousness is incorporated or enfolded into the structure of each successive level, which is simultaneously a greater revelation or unfolding of Spirit/Reality/Consciousness. Thus, each level expresses a qualitatively different spirituality.

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