Lily Taylor, MA, PhD.

Lily Taylor, MA, PhD.

Professional Counsellor

She/Her/Hers

Spiritual development has been an integral part of my life since childhood when I used to visit the local church – a medieval, gothic cathedral in Austria outside of mass times to simply sit and be still. I have vidid memories of experiencing a sense of the peace and the sacredness of the space.

I grew up in a Catholic country where my religious education included both Catholicism at school and Lutheran, protestant ideas at home through my mother and her family. Later as an adult I became interested in other religions and in spirituality in a more general sense involving formal and informal study and learning. I have been practising yoga and Buddhist meditation for the past twenty years.

Whilst my own experiences have mostly been in-line with spiritual emergence rather than spiritual emergency, I have had times when I felt ‘spiritually challenged’. I have however witnessed friends in spiritual crisis who were faced with a lack of understanding by their community and who did not receive the support they would have needed. I have seen firsthand how much suffering can be caused by a misguided response to a person’s developmental, spiritual crisis. I have come to understand that listening with an open mind and not pathologising experiences is a vital ingredient in supporting somebody effectively. I feel confident being with people who are in the process of integrating unusual, spiritual experiences be it through support groups or through 1:1 counselling.