Year
2024Credit points
10Campus offering
No unit offerings are currently available for this unitPrerequisites
Nil
Teaching organisation
This unit involves 150 hours of focused learning. This includes structured synchronous or asynchronous learning activities. The remaining hours typically involve reading, research, and the preparation of submission of tasks for assessment.
Unit rationale, description and aim
In this unit, students examine both the concepts of and interrelationships between sexuality, intimacy and spirituality, especially as they pertain to the practice of spiritual direction and ministry. This will necessarily involve exploring current cultural influences and politics of different perspectives of sexuality, intimacy and spirituality. Emphasis will be placed on practitioner self-awareness in relation to these concepts, in forging the professionally appropriate helping alliance necessary for spiritual direction and ministry. The Christian understanding of the human person will be deployed as a key foundation in exploring the meaning of helping in spiritual direction and as starting point for other such spiritual and religious frameworks (Why do we seek to help? What outcome do we seek? What is the implicit understanding of the human person in what is sought for them?). The aim of this exploration is to develop further an appropriately integrated professional practice so as to promote human wellbeing and avoid doing harm.
Learning outcomes
To successfully complete this unit you will be able to demonstrate you have achieved the learning outcomes (LO) detailed in the below table.
Each outcome is informed by a number of graduate capabilities (GC) to ensure your work in this, and every unit, is part of a larger goal of graduating from ACU with the attributes of insight, empathy, imagination and impact.
Explore the graduate capabilities.
| Learning Outcome Number | Learning Outcome Description |
|---|---|
| LO1 | Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the connections between sexuality, spirituality and intimacy for authentic helping relationships |
| LO2 | Evaluate the ethical implications of sexuality, intimacy and spirituality for authentic personal and professional identity in helping relationships |
| LO3 | Integrate fundamental principles and practices relating to sexuality, spirituality and intimacy within their own service context |
Content
Topics will include:
- The politics of addressing the relationships between human spirituality, sexuality and intimacy in the contemporary context in preparation for spirituality direction and ministry;
- The relationships between human spirituality, sexuality and intimacy;
- The concepts of power culture and power;
- Ignatian spirituality as a foundational spiritual process for exploration – being found and finding infinite love in all things;
- Sexuality in the Christian scriptures and in the Church;
- The role of sexuality in an integrative spirituality as foundational for dynamic and authentic interpersonal relationships;
- Sexuality, spirituality and intimacy responding to human suffering: The importance of sensitivity and compassion in the service of human flourishing;
- Ethical perspectives on spirituality, intimacy and sexuality;
- The foundational ethical role of experiential expertise – the wisdom of the room / socially collaborative learning;
- LGBTQI and other sexual orientation identities, and intimacy, sexuality and spirituality;
- Sexuality and nomenclature: The flux of definitions;
- Understandings of psychosexual maturity: Towards an ethics of authenticity;
- Understanding the role of vocation as call and response, to an integrated ethics of sexuality, spirituality and intimacy;
- Inclusivity and diversity in the workplace and organisations: Promoting cultures of safety in workplaces and organisations.
Learning and teaching strategy and rationale
The unit is normally offered in scheduled online mode, a way that blends the use of online delivery of learning materials and activities that can be undertaken synchronously and asynchronously. This means that students can undertake some learning activities on their own at times that do not depend on the availability of others, and other learning activities that are undertaken interactively with other students and teaching staff at the same time. Using scheduled online delivery means that students do not have to be at the same place as each other, but can interact remotely.
In order to benefit from this mode of learning, students need to be independently motivated. Units offered in the course normally follow a cycle: students complete preparatory activities before meeting together; in webinars, students work collaboratively with each other and the lecturer to clarify, extend and apply what they have learned; and after each collaborative session, students reflect critically on their personal experience and observations in light of materials covered in the unit. As the cycle is repeated, students bring new understandings to bear on further issues and ideas, so that each cycle of learning deepens the one before. Students co-construct a supportive and encouraging learning community through their active participation in classes as well as through offline engagement, such as through discussion boards.
All students are required to keep a personal journal during the course of this unit.
Assessment strategy and rationale
The assessment strategy of this unit is designed to ensure that students engage deeply with the reading and theory. All assessment tasks are designed for students to show their achievement of each learning outcome and graduate attribute. They require students to demonstrate the nexus between their learning, dispositions, and spiritual practice, and the evidence on which this demonstration is based.
Overview of assessments
| Brief Description of Kind and Purpose of Assessment Tasks | Weighting | Learning Outcomes |
|---|---|---|
15-minute online recorded presentation and written summary (equiv. to 2500 words). This task is designed to provide students with a preliminary opportunity to explore one of the topics studied and present a critical analysis to peers. | 30% | LO1, LO3 |
Integrative Journal Summary (1500 words). This task is designed to enable students to engage critically and reflectively with the combination of their own experience, pertinent lecture materials, articles and other texts. Students are required to include their personal journal as a significant resource for framing this task. | 20% | LO1, LO2, LO3 |
Integrative essay (3500 words). This task is designed to enable students to consolidate their learning by reflecting critically on the key issues arising from the unit content and considering its implications for personal and professional practice. | 50% | LO1, LO2, LO3 |
Representative texts and references
Bumpus, Mary Rose & Rebecca Bradburn-Langer. Supervision of Spiritual Directors: Engaging in Holy Mystery. London, UK: Morehouse Publishing, 2005.
Copeland, M. Shawn. Discipleship in a Time of Impasse. Los Angeles: Marymount Institute Press and TSEHI Publishers, 2016.
Falender, Carole A., and Edward P. Shafranske. Clinical Supervision: A Competency-Based Approach. Washington DC: American Psychological Association, 2009.
Gardner, Fiona. Critical Spirituality: A Holistic Approach to Contemporary Practice. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2011.
Haight, Roger Spiritual and Religious: Explorations for Seekers. New York: Orbis Books, 2016.
Haight, Roger Christian Spirituality for Seekers: Reflections on the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius Loyola. New York: Orbis Books, 2012.
Hawkins, Peter & Robin Shohet. Supervision in the Helping Professions, 4th ed. Maidenhead, UK: Open University Press, 2012.
Hewson, Daphne & Michael Carroll. Reflective Practice In Supervision. Hazelbrook: MoshPit Publishing, 2016.
Leach, Jane & Michael Paterson. Pastoral Supervision: A Handbook. London: SCM Press, 2010.
Traub, George W., ed. An Ignatian Spirituality Reader. Chicago: Loyola University Press, 2008.