Swedenborg's correspondences and the New Church

1. Introduction

Version followed: Swedenborg's Heaven and Hell in the Swedenborg Foundation's Portable New Century Edition (trans. George F. Dole, 2010; Latin original London 1758), the Swedenborg Foundation's own explanation of correspondences, and each New Church body's own self-description: the Swedenborgian Church of North America (formerly the General Convention of the New Jerusalem) at swedenborg.org, and the General Church of the New Jerusalem at newchurch.org, including its Order and Organization statement (July 2008). The Lord's New Church Which Is Nova Hierosolyma is described from secondary sources only [uncertain: secondary, unverified].

What it is. This guide covers a body of eighteenth-century theological writings and the churches built on them, not a therapy. Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772) published visionary theology, including Heaven and Hell (1758), that his readers call the Writings or Heavenly Doctrines. Reading circles became churches from the 1780s onward [source: Swedenborgian Church, History of the Movement]. Today about seven Swedenborgian denominations exist, with roughly 50,000 members in total. The largest groups are in West and South Africa [source: WRSP timeline, J. F. Lawrence].

Correspondences, as the tradition teaches them. In the Swedenborg Foundation's account, creation is ordered in levels: the Lord, then the heavens, then the world of spirits, then the natural world. Each level reflects the one above it. Correspondence is the living relationship between these levels. The Foundation calls it a real, ongoing connection, not just symbolism and not a fixed one-to-one code. Its standard example is the sun: divine love corresponds to heat and divine wisdom to light [source: Swedenborg Foundation, Correspondences]. Heaven and Hell §89 states that "the whole natural world corresponds to the spiritual world", as an effect depends on its cause. §§87–115 apply this to the human being and to everything earthly [source: Heaven and Hell §89, Academy of the New Church online text; NCE contents]. Swedenborg's preface holds that "the Word is in fact written in pure correspondences". On this view the Bible has an inner, spiritual sense under its literal sense [source: NCE Heaven and Hell]. These are claims of revelation, attributed to Swedenborg and his churches. They are religious teaching rather than empirical claims, so no evidence rating applies.

How change happens, in the tradition's terms. The tradition's word for change is regeneration: becoming a caring person who reflects God's love and wisdom. Swedenborg reads the Genesis creation story as the inner story of that process [source: Swedenborg Foundation, Correspondences]. Swedenborgians reject salvation by "faith alone" and stress spiritual growth in this life [source: WRSP timeline]. Heaven and hell are described as states people freely choose and already live in now, not as rewards or punishments [source: Swedenborgian Church, What happens after we die?].

Why it reaches the therapy room. Clients may be lifelong members of one of these bodies, or general readers who came to Heaven and Hell through grief, near-death interest or a search for meaning. The WRSP profile notes that members have been active in near-death studies, and that the movement was linked to spiritualism from the 1830s [source: WRSP timeline]. The therapist's work is client-led exploration of what these teachings mean in the client's life, culturally informed assessment, and referral. The therapist does not teach or interpret the doctrine [synthesis].

2. Framework

2a. The bodies, as they publish themselves

Swedenborgian Church of North America (General Convention).

• Founding: seventeen congregations met at the Philadelphia New Jerusalem Temple in May 1817, adopted a constitution and began an annual convention [source: WRSP timeline; History of the Movement]. The convention has met every summer since, except in rare national emergencies.
• Polity: congregational, not episcopal. Churches or regions send delegates to the annual convention, which handles business, makes policy and elects officers. A Council of Ministers judges ordination requests mainly on the quality of ministry a person can offer [source: History of the Movement].
• Ordination: the church ordained its first woman in 1975 and its first openly gay minister in 1997 [source: History of the Movement].
• Theological school: in 2001 the seminary left Boston after 135 years and re-established itself within the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley [source: WRSP timeline]. Its current name is not given here [uncertain: not verified].
• Worship: music, prayers, responses and an interpretive sermon. The Bible is ritually opened on the altar at the start and closed at the end. Study groups are a major practice, and Wilson Van Dusen promoted meditation, dream work and direct personal experience [source: WRSP timeline].

General Church of the New Jerusalem (Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania).

• Origin: the SCNA history and WRSP date the secession from the Convention to 1890. The General Church's own history describes its formation in 1897 among ministers of the Academy of the New Church, which was founded in 1876 [source: History of the Movement; WRSP timeline; General Church history page]. The dates differ in the sources [uncertain: sources differ].
• Leadership: an Executive Bishop "governs the organized Church with the help of an Assistant Bishop" and consults clergy and lay boards. A lay Board of Directors, chaired by the Executive Bishop as President, handles business, financial and legal affairs. The church describes its government as episcopal [source: General Church, Structure and Leadership].
• Priesthood: three degrees. The first degree is instruction (white stole). The second is pastoral, including marriages and governing a society (blue stole). The third is government: bishops who ordain and dedicate places of worship (red stole) [source: Order and Organization 2008].
• Other bodies: a Consistory of priests reflects on teachings but is "not a council to decide upon doctrine". A Council of the Clergy advises the Bishop and nominates bishops. A General Assembly normally meets every four to six years and confirms those nominations [source: Order and Organization 2008].
• Local units: societies (with a resident pastor, nominated by the Bishop and elected by the society), circles and groups. Only members vote. Other adults are welcomed as "members of the congregation" [source: Order and Organization 2008].
• Membership: open to people baptised into the New Church who subscribe to its principles. Applications go to the Bishop, who decides. The church has no formal binding statement of doctrine. The Bishop may remove from membership someone who disturbs the Church, after careful consultation [source: Order and Organization 2008].
• Education: the Academy of the New Church runs secondary schools, Bryn Athyn College of the New Church and a Theological School. The Bishop is ex officio Chancellor [source: Order and Organization 2008]. The Bryn Athyn Cathedral was dedicated in 1919 [source: General Church history page].
• Costs and ordination: no tithe or fee is published [uncertain: not verified]. The Order document's ministry training refers to men. WRSP reports that the conservative branch has resisted ordaining women and gay candidates [source: WRSP timeline].
• Status of the Writings: the General Church's history notes that some leaders regarded the Writings as "coming with Divine authority" and as the Second Coming of the Lord [source: General Church history page]. WRSP says the General Church treats the Writings as a "Third Testament", while Wikipedia gives that term to the Lord's New Church [uncertain: sources differ].

Lord's New Church Which Is Nova Hierosolyma.

• Origin: separated from the General Church in the 1930s over whether the Writings, as scripture, also have an inner sense [source: WRSP timeline]. It is small in the US and has churches in the Netherlands and Ukraine [source: WRSP timeline].
• Further detail [uncertain: secondary, unverified]: founded in 1937 in Bryn Athyn and The Hague. Founders named include Rev. Theodore Pitcairn and Rev. Ernst Pfeiffer. The dispute centred on the Dutch journal De Hemelsche Leer. The church has an episcopal polity, about 1,500 members (mostly in southern Africa) and schools in Lesotho [source: Wikipedia].

Swedenborg Foundation. A nonprofit publisher in Pennsylvania that issues the New Century Edition, study series and videos. It is distinct from the churches [source: Swedenborg Foundation, Correspondences].

2b. The psychotherapist's phases [synthesis]

No source gives a session count or format for clinical work with members or readers. The phases below are a practice framework, not a published protocol [synthesis].

1. Engagement and cultural assessment. Goal: learn which body, if any, the client belongs to (reader only, SCNA, General Church, Lord's New Church or another), what the teachings mean to them, and what they want from therapy. Use the Cultural Formulation Interview (CFI) and its spirituality, religion and moral traditions module. Move on once the client's explanatory model and the role of faith in the problem are clear.
2. Differential assessment. Goal: separate culturally normative belief and experience (for example a sense of a deceased person's presence, or symbolic reading of events) from psychosis, mania, dissociation, OCD-type scrupulosity or complicated grief. Do this without treating belief itself as a symptom. Move on once the working formulation is agreed with the client.
3. Meaning-centred work. Goal: use the client's own spiritual frame (regeneration, correspondences, afterlife teaching) as a resource for grief, guilt, relationships and life decisions, alongside an evidence-based treatment for any disorder. Move on as goals are met.
4. Community, family and transitions. Goal: address community, family, schooling, membership or leaving issues. With consent, liaise with clergy.
5. Consolidation and ending. Goal: review gains, the place of faith or community in relapse prevention, and referral routes.

3. Guiding principles

• Describe the faith as it describes itself. Use the client's and the churches' terms (the Lord, the Word, the Writings, regeneration, uses, correspondence), glossed in plain language. In practice: ask what a term means to the client before assuming [source: Swedenborg Foundation, Correspondences; synthesis].
• Neither affirm nor dismiss revelation. Swedenborg's visions and the existence of the spiritual world are religious claims, attributed. In practice: never argue doctrine or endorse it. Work with function and meaning [synthesis].
• The bodies differ; do not merge them. Polity, ordination of women and LGBTQ people, and the authority given to the Writings vary between the SCNA, the General Church and the Lord's New Church [source: History of the Movement; Order and Organization 2008; WRSP timeline]. In practice: ask which community the client belongs to and what that community teaches on the issue in hand.
• The therapist is not a minister, interpreter or medium. In practice: do not interpret correspondences, scripture or dreams for the client. Do not convey messages from the dead. Refer doctrinal questions to the client's clergy if the client wishes [synthesis].
• Cultural assessment before diagnosis. In practice: use the CFI and its spirituality module before forming a view on unusual experiences [source: APA CFI Supplementary Modules].
• Code the problem accurately. Where the focus is a faith struggle without a mental disorder, ICD-10-CM lists "Religious or spiritual problem" as an inclusion term under Z65.8 [source: Unbound Medicine ICD-10-CM]. The DSM-5-TR wording is [uncertain: not verified].
• Spiritual and religious competence. Work to published competencies for psychologists, e.g. Vieten et al. 2013 [uncertain: not verified]. In practice: know your own reactions to visionary religion and to Christian denominations, and seek consultation where needed.
• Consent and client lead. In practice: bring religious material into therapy only as the client chooses, and check repeatedly that it is helping [synthesis].
• Autonomy in membership. The General Church admits members by Bishop's decision and may remove members [source: Order and Organization 2008]. In practice: support the client's own choices about staying, changing body or leaving, without steering [synthesis].
• Ethics and boundaries. Avoid dual roles, such as treating someone from your own congregation, and keep self-disclosure about your own faith purposeful and brief. These points are [synthesis].

4. Intervention inventory

The churches publish worship, sacraments, study groups and pastoral care. They publish no therapy procedures. The interventions below are the psychotherapist's own procedures for clients shaped by these teachings. Each is marked [synthesis] unless a source is named. The therapist does not lead worship, interpret the Word or offer readings of correspondences [synthesis].

4.1 Mapping affiliation and involvement

• Purpose: A "Swedenborgian" client may be a general reader, a member of a congregational church (SCNA) or a member of an episcopal church with its own schools and a closely tied community (General Church; Lord's New Church). These carry different social stakes. Use this mapping at intake [source: History of the Movement; Order and Organization 2008; synthesis].
• Steps:
  1. Ask how the client came to Swedenborg: born into the church, converted, or reading on their own.
  2. Ask which body, which local society, circle or group, and whether they are a voting member, a "member of the congregation" or not affiliated (these categories come from the General Church's Order document).
  3. Map ties in family, schooling (for example Academy schools), work, marriage and friendships.
  4. Note what is at stake socially if beliefs or membership change.
• Example language (illustrative): "Some people read Swedenborg on their own; others grew up in one of the New Church communities. Which is closer to your story?" "How much of your daily life, such as family, school, work and friends, is connected to the church?"
• Watch for: assuming every Swedenborgian reader belongs to a church, or treating the three bodies as one. It is working when the client corrects and adds detail freely.

4.2 Cultural Formulation Interview with the spirituality module

• Purpose: Elicit the client's explanatory model and how faith helps or adds stress. Use it early, and whenever spiritual material is central [source: APA CFI Supplementary Modules].
• Steps:
  1. Run the core CFI: the problem in the client's words, causes, stressors and supports, cultural identity, and past help-seeking.
  2. Add Module 5 (spirituality, religion and moral traditions). It covers affiliation and community ties; the place of the tradition in daily life, family and decisions; home and community practices; whether leaders, texts or practices have helped with the problem; and whether the tradition has added to the problem, caused distress, discrimination or conflict. Use the APA form, which clinicians may reproduce for use with their patients, rather than improvising items.
  3. Add Module 3 (social network) or Module 12 (caregivers) where community or family is central.
  4. Summarise back and agree a shared formulation.
• Example language (illustrative): "Has your faith, or your church, helped with this, made it harder, or both?" "Are there teachings from Swedenborg that you find yourself thinking about when this problem is at its worst?"
• Watch for: steering the client toward or away from faith. The CFI should support, not replace, clinical diagnosis [source: APA CFI Supplementary Modules]. It is working when the client can say how faith and the problem interact.

4.3 Exploring the client's own correspondential readings

• Purpose: Some clients read their lives, dreams or nature through correspondences: light as truth, heat as love, water as truth [source: Swedenborg Foundation, Correspondences]. Treat these as the client's reflective material when they bring them [synthesis].
• Steps:
  1. Invite the client to describe the image or event and the meaning they give it.
  2. Ask what feeling, value or decision the meaning points to.
  3. Ask how that meaning fits with their wider life and goals.
  4. If the client asks what something "really" corresponds to, decline to rule. Ask how they have learned to approach this (study, a minister, the Foundation's dictionaries such as Nicholson's Dictionary of Correspondences), and keep the focus on lived meaning.
• Example language (illustrative): "You said the light in that dream felt like a kind of understanding arriving. What were you starting to understand?" "I'm not the person to tell you what it signifies in the Writings, but I'm interested in what it means to you right now."
• Watch for: rigid one-to-one decoding that drives fear or compulsive checking. The Foundation itself calls correspondence dynamic, not a fixed code [source: Swedenborg Foundation, Correspondences]. Also watch for the therapist slipping into the interpreter's role. It is working when the reading opens up feeling and choice rather than closing them down.

4.4 Grief work with Swedenborgian afterlife teaching

• Purpose: Heaven and Hell sets out an afterlife in detail. It includes the world of spirits (§§421–431), revival after death (§§445–452), three states after death (§§491–520), marriages in heaven (§§366–386), and the teaching that the Lord casts no one into hell (§§545–550) [source: NCE Heaven and Hell contents]. The SCNA presents these visions as "a source of comfort and insight" [source: What happens after we die?]. Use this with bereaved clients who draw on the teaching, as one strand alongside standard grief care [synthesis].
• Steps:
  1. Assess the grief first: its course, functioning, risk, and markers of prolonged grief.
  2. Ask what the client believes is happening for the deceased now, and where the belief comes from (their reading, their church, or elsewhere).
  3. Explore the comfort and the strain. The teaching that our nature after death depends on the kind of life we led (§§470–484, chapter title) can comfort, or can raise fear about the deceased's or one's own state.
  4. Support continuing-bonds practices that the client and their community find fitting, such as worship, reading or remembrance.
  5. Combine with evidence-based grief interventions if grief is prolonged or impairing.
• Example language (illustrative): "When you picture where she is now, what do you see? How does that sit with you?" "It sounds like the teaching brings you real comfort, and also a worry about whether he chose well. Can we look at both?"
• Watch for: belief used to bypass grief ("I shouldn't be sad"); fear about a loved one's eternal state; a turn to paid mediums or séances (see 4.7). It is working when the client can grieve and hold their faith at once.

4.5 Bereaved parents and the teaching on children

• Purpose: Heaven and Hell has a chapter on children in heaven (§§329–345) [source: NCE contents]. The SCNA summarises that children who die are "gently raised by angelic spirits" [source: What happens after we die?]. Use this with parents after a pregnancy loss or a child's death who draw on the teaching [synthesis].
• Steps:
  1. Follow the parent's lead about whether and how to bring in the teaching.
  2. Reflect both the solace and the losses that remain, such as missing the child's growing up.
  3. Watch for guilt and self-blame, and address them with standard grief and trauma approaches.
  4. With consent, connect the parent with their pastor for funeral, memorial or doctrinal questions.
• Example language (illustrative): "You've told me you believe she is being cared for. And you still don't get to be the one caring for her. Both can be true."
• Watch for: pressure from others to be consoled quickly; suppressed anger at God or the church. It is working when the parent can speak about the child and the loss without shutting down.

4.6 Differential assessment of visionary or spirit-contact experiences

• Purpose: Swedenborg reported visiting the spiritual world. His status as a seer and his psychological disposition have been long debated, and the movement was linked to spiritualism [source: WRSP timeline]. Some readers report their own visions, presences or conversations with spirits. Assess without pathologising belief [synthesis].
• Steps:
  1. Get a detailed, curious account: onset, content, frequency, context (grief, sleep loss, substances, stress) and the client's own interpretation.
  2. Ask how their community views such experiences. Use the CFI explanatory model and, with consent, a family member or the client's clergy as informants.
  3. Screen for psychosis (other hallucinations, thought disorder, functional decline, negative symptoms), mania (sleep, energy, grandiosity), dissociation, substance effects, neurological causes and complicated grief.
  4. Distinguish experiences that are bounded, culturally coherent and non-distressing from those that are escalating, commanding, distressing or impairing.
  5. Where risk or disorder is present, refer for psychiatric or medical assessment, explaining this respectfully.
• Example language (illustrative): "I'd like to understand this experience fully, including what it means to you and how it's affecting sleep, work and relationships. Asking about those things isn't a judgement on your beliefs."
• Watch for: command content; belief that one has a unique revelatory mission alongside reduced sleep; withdrawal from the community because others "do not see". Also watch for the opposite error, labelling a normative experience of a deceased person's presence as psychosis. It is working when the client feels heard and the formulation fits all the data. Domain XIV 019 (Christian theosophy) covers related visionary currents.

4.7 Screening for mediums, channelling and financial exploitation

• Purpose: Interest in the afterlife can lead bereaved readers to paid mediums, channellers or past-life work outside any New Church body. Assess exposure to suggestion and financial loss [synthesis; WRSP timeline for the historical link to spiritualism].
• Steps:
  1. Ask whether the client consults anyone who claims contact with the dead, and how often.
  2. Ask about money spent, any pressure to return, and how they feel after sessions.
  3. Explore any "memories" or "messages" that came through such sessions with care. Suggestion can shape them. Cross-refer Domain VI 110 on regression and false memory.
  4. Discuss what the client's own church teaches about seeking spirit contact; suggest they ask their minister if they wish. The therapist does not rule on the doctrine [uncertain: church positions not verified].
• Example language (illustrative): "How do you feel in the days after a session with her? Has the cost become a strain?"
• Watch for: escalating spending, isolation, decisions made on a medium's instruction, or grief that stays frozen. It is working when the client chooses with full information and their grief keeps moving.

4.8 Scrupulosity about regeneration, hell and "the life we led"

• Purpose: The teaching that heaven and hell are freely chosen states, and that our nature after death follows the life we led, comforts many readers [source: What happens after we die?; NCE contents]. For a client with OCD it can fuel fear and checking about one's "ruling love" or inner state. Assess and treat the scrupulosity, not the faith [synthesis].
• Steps:
  1. Map intrusive doubts, compulsions (reassurance-seeking from ministers or family, checking texts, mental reviewing, repetitive prayer) and avoidance.
  2. Agree with the client the line between their faith practice and OCD rituals. With consent, involve their pastor to clarify what the community actually expects.
  3. Offer or refer for exposure and response prevention. IOCDF resources describe ERP for scrupulosity [uncertain: not verified]. Exposure needs informed consent and a graded plan agreed with the client. Do not build exposures that the client experiences as sacrilegious without their full agreement and pastoral input if they want it.
  4. Track reassurance-seeking and its reduction.
• Example language (illustrative): "It sounds like your faith matters to you, and that the doubt keeps demanding certainty your faith doesn't actually ask for. Shall we look at what the doubt makes you do?"
• Watch for: the therapist offering theological reassurance, which itself becomes a compulsion; a rise in distress during exposure that is not coming down. It is working when compulsions fall and religious practice feels freer.

4.9 Linking regeneration to therapy goals

• Purpose: The tradition frames change as regeneration: becoming a caring person who reflects God's love and wisdom [source: Swedenborg Foundation, Correspondences]. It rejects "faith alone" in favour of growth in how one lives [source: WRSP timeline]. Where the client wishes, use these values to shape goals, for example in values-based or behavioural activation work [synthesis].
• Steps:
  1. Ask what a regenerating, "useful" life looks like to the client. The General Church uses "uses" for the church's services and work [source: Order and Organization 2008]; check the client's own meaning.
  2. Translate it into concrete, observable behaviours.
  3. Use them as value-consistent goals, separated from perfectionism.
  4. Review whether the goals serve wellbeing or feed self-criticism.
• Example language (illustrative): "When you talk about becoming more loving, what would that look like on an ordinary Tuesday?"
• Watch for: moral perfectionism; depression framed as spiritual failure. It is working when values energise rather than condemn.

4.10 When the client brings dream work, meditation or study-group material

• Purpose: SCNA study groups are a major practice. Wilson Van Dusen promoted meditation, dream work and direct personal experience within the tradition [source: WRSP timeline]. Clients may bring such material. The therapist explores it and does not run spiritual practice [synthesis].
• Steps:
  1. Ask about the practice, who leads it, how often it happens, and its effects on mood, sleep and reality sense.
  2. Explore dream or meditation content as the client's own material (see 4.3).
  3. Screen for adverse effects of intensive meditation, such as anxiety, depersonalisation or re-experiencing trauma. Published research on meditation-related difficulties, such as Lindahl et al. 2017, PLOS ONE; Farias et al. 2020, Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, is [uncertain: not verified].
  4. If adverse effects arise, help the client reduce intensity with their teacher or group, and assess for underlying disorder.
• Example language (illustrative): "After the group's meditation evenings, how are you sleeping? Any sense of things feeling unreal?"
• Watch for: derealisation, intrusive trauma material, or sleep loss. It is working when the practice remains nourishing and bounded.

4.11 Gender, sexuality and differing church positions

• Purpose: The SCNA has ordained women since 1975 and an openly gay minister since 1997. The conservative branch has resisted both [source: History of the Movement; WRSP timeline]. LGBTQ clients, women discerning ministry, and mixed-affiliation couples may carry conflict about this [synthesis].
• Steps:
  1. Ask how the client's own body and local society treat the issue. Do not assume.
  2. Explore the client's own values, relationships and the costs of each option.
  3. Support identity integration at the client's pace, including options within the wider New Church family.
  4. Assess minority stress, shame, depression and suicide risk using standard practice.
• Example language (illustrative): "Different New Church communities have taken different positions on this. What has your community said, and what do you believe?"
• Watch for: any attempt by others to change sexual orientation or gender identity. Assess for those practices and support the client's safety. It is working when the client feels less split between identity and faith.

4.12 Close-knit community, family and schooling

• Purpose: The General Church's centre at Bryn Athyn has a cathedral, Academy schools and a college [source: Order and Organization 2008; General Church history page]. Life can be closely interwoven with the church. Address how this shapes a client's choices and support [synthesis].
• Steps:
  1. Draw a genogram or ecomap marking church roles and ties.
  2. Identify sources of support and of pressure.
  3. Build supports both inside and outside the community, as the client chooses.
  4. Plan for confidentiality in a small community, for example where the client may meet you.
• Example language (illustrative): "If you changed your mind about something, who would you be most worried about telling?"
• Watch for: confidentiality breaches through community networks; the therapist assuming that close-knit means controlling. It is working when the client can name choices and the supports for them.

4.13 Doctrinal conflict, membership and leaving

• Purpose: The General Church admits members by the Bishop's decision and may remove a member who disturbs the Church, after consultation [source: Order and Organization 2008]. The movement's history includes the 1890 and 1930s schisms over authority and doctrine [source: WRSP timeline]. Support clients who are questioning, moving between bodies, removed, or leaving [synthesis].
• Steps:
  1. Clarify what the client wants: to stay, to change body, to take a break, or to leave.
  2. Explore losses (community, identity, family, schooling, work) and gains for each path.
  3. Help the client plan disclosures to family and community, including scripts they write themselves.
  4. Address grief for lost community and certainty, and build a new network.
  5. If the client stays, help them find a way of belonging that fits their conscience.
• Example language (illustrative): "You don't need to decide today whether you stay. Let's understand what each path would cost you and give you."
• Watch for: the therapist's own views on religion steering the outcome. Court findings or independent investigations of coercive control in these bodies: none found in the sources consulted, so do not assume coercion. Assess it as for any group: isolation, control of information, finances or relationships, threats about leaving. It is working when the decision feels like the client's own.

4.14 Religious trauma and moral injury

• Purpose: Some clients report harm from religious experiences: shame, fear of hell, or rejection after leaving or coming out. Assess and treat trauma symptoms while respecting any faith the client keeps [synthesis].
• Steps:
  1. Assess for PTSD, depression and anxiety with standard measures.
  2. Build safety and stabilisation first.
  3. Use evidence-based trauma treatment where criteria are met.
  4. Separate the injury from the faith if the client wants to keep the faith, or support grieving it if they do not.
• Example language (illustrative): "Some of what happened hurt you. Your relationship with God and your church is yours to work out, at your own pace."
• Watch for: blanket attributions ("religion caused all of this"), whether from the client or the therapist. It is working when the symptoms reduce.

4.15 Family members' concerns

• Purpose: Relatives may worry when someone joins, intensifies involvement, changes body, or leaves. A relative may also be seeing visions or consulting mediums after reading Swedenborg [synthesis].
• Steps:
  1. Help the relative separate disagreement about belief from concern about health or safety.
  2. Give them accurate, attributed information about the specific body (Section 2a).
  3. Coach them in curious, non-confrontational contact.
  4. Give red flags that warrant a medical or psychiatric referral (4.6).
• Example language (illustrative): "Your brother's beliefs may be very different from yours. What we can watch for together is whether he's sleeping, eating, working and staying in touch."
• Watch for: relatives seeking help to force a change of faith. Do not provide confrontation scripts. It is working when the family stays connected.

4.16 Liaison with clergy, with consent

• Purpose: Pastors in all three bodies give pastoral care and teaching [source: Order and Organization 2008; History of the Movement]. With consent, they can clarify doctrine and offer community support [synthesis].
• Steps:
  1. Obtain explicit written consent that specifies what will be shared.
  2. Agree roles: the pastor addresses faith, the therapist addresses mental health.
  3. Share only what is necessary.
  4. Review the liaison with the client afterwards.
• Example language (illustrative): "Would it help if your minister explained what your church actually teaches on this, and I stayed with how it's affecting you?"
• Watch for: blurred confidentiality; clergy taking a therapeutic role or the therapist taking a pastoral one. It is working when the client feels supported by both and not caught between them.

4.17 Children and safeguarding

• Purpose: Children are raised and schooled within New Church communities [source: Order and Organization 2008]. Documented faith-based refusal of medical care in these bodies: none found in the sources consulted. Apply ordinary safeguarding, consent and assent [synthesis].
• Steps:
  1. Work with the child's beliefs as with any family faith.
  2. Follow local child-protection law for any harm, whatever its rationale.
  3. Make sure religious explanations for a child's distress, such as visions or fears of hell, do not replace developmental and clinical assessment.
  4. Obtain parental consent and the child's assent.
• Example language (illustrative): to a parent, "I'd like to understand how your family's faith helps your daughter, and also make sure we've checked the things that can cause nightmares at her age."
• Watch for: frightening religious material and intense fear in children; conflict in mixed-faith custody disputes. It is working when the child's development is assessed on its own terms.

4.18 Therapist role, boundaries and self-disclosure

• Purpose: The therapist must not act as interpreter of the Writings, medium or spiritual guide [synthesis].
• Steps:
  1. Decline requests to interpret the Writings, dreams or signs, or to "sense" the deceased.
  2. If you share the faith or belong to the same body or community, weigh the dual-relationship risk, seek consultation, and refer where needed.
  3. Limit self-disclosure about your own beliefs to what serves the client.
• Example language (illustrative): "I'm not a minister or an interpreter of Swedenborg. My job is to help you with how this is affecting you, and your minister or your own study can help with the doctrine."
• Watch for: pressure to take sides in church disputes. It is working when the client experiences the frame as safe.

4.19 Coding, documentation and referral

• Purpose: Record faith-related problems accurately and route care appropriately [synthesis].
• Steps:
  1. Where the focus is a faith struggle without a mental disorder, consider ICD-10-CM Z65.8, which includes "Religious or spiritual problem" [source: Unbound Medicine ICD-10-CM].
  2. Document the CFI findings and the client's explanatory model.
  3. Refer onward for psychosis, mania, OCD, prolonged grief or trauma, as indicated.
  4. Signpost community resources the client chooses: their pastor, a study group, or publications from the Swedenborg Foundation, Swedenborgian Church or General Church.
• Example language (illustrative): "I'd like to note that part of what we're working on is a spiritual question, not a sign that anything is wrong with you."
• Watch for: a Z-code used in place of assessing a disorder that is present. It is working when the record matches the formulation.

5. Handling problems

The churches' sources do not address psychotherapy problems. All guidance in this section is [synthesis] unless a source is named.

• The client wants the therapist to confirm or refute Swedenborg. Say plainly that this is outside your role. Then turn to what hangs on the answer for them: fear, hope or a decision. Offer clergy or study resources if they want doctrinal discussion.
• The client wants you to interpret a dream or sign by correspondences. Decline the interpreter's role. Explore the client's own meaning (4.3). The Foundation itself describes correspondence as dynamic rather than a fixed code [source: Swedenborg Foundation, Correspondences].
• Stuck grief held in place by belief. For example, "She is in heaven, so I have no right to be sad." Validate both the belief and the sadness. Normalise grief within faith, and consider evidence-based prolonged grief treatment.
• Rising spirit-contact experiences. Reassess urgently for psychosis, mania, substances and sleep loss (4.6). Involve family or clergy as informants with consent. Refer for psychiatric assessment if there is risk or disorder. Avoid both colluding with and ridiculing the experience.
• Dependence on a paid medium or online channeller. Use motivational, non-shaming exploration of costs and benefits. Set a joint budget or limits if the client chooses. Cross-refer Domain VI 110 on suggestion and false memory.
• Scrupulosity that resists ERP. Check that faith practice and compulsions have been told apart. Add pastoral clarification with consent, and reduce therapist reassurance. Refer to an OCD specialist if progress stalls.
• Rupture over the therapist's perceived stance on religion. Name it, invite feedback, own any misattunement, and restate respect for the client's faith and autonomy. If you differ markedly in worldview, consult and consider referral if the alliance cannot be repaired.
• The client says that leaving, or staying, means betraying family. Slow down. Map the losses on each side and support a phased plan the client designs (4.13). Do not set a pace for the client.
• The client meets the therapist in the community. Agree a plan in advance for chance meetings. In very small communities, consider referral out of area.
• Non-adherence to homework involving religious practice. Check whether the task conflicted with faith or community norms. Redesign it with the client.
• Overwhelm when exploring religious trauma. Return to stabilisation, slow the pace, and use grounding. Assess for dissociation.
• Escalation signals. These include apocalyptic urgency, isolation from all outside contact, refusal of necessary medical care, or a crisis after membership removal. Assess risk, including suicide risk, with standard practice and safety planning, and use safeguarding duties if children are involved. Such events in these bodies: none found in the sources consulted; this is general practice.

Sources

• Heaven and Hell: The Portable New Century Edition (Swedenborg, trans. G. F. Dole, Swedenborg Foundation, 2010; rev. 2016 printing)
• Heaven and Hell n. 89 (Academy of the New Church online text)
• Swedenborg Foundation: Correspondences
• Swedenborgian Church of North America: History of the Movement
• Swedenborgian Church of North America: What happens after we die?
• General Church of the New Jerusalem: Structure and Leadership
• General Church of the New Jerusalem: Order and Organization (July 2008)
• General Church history page (old.newchurch.org)
• World Religions and Spirituality Project: Swedenborgian Church of North America timeline (J. F. Lawrence)
• Wikipedia: Lord's New Church Which Is Nova Hierosolyma [uncertain: secondary, unverified]
• APA DSM-5 Cultural Formulation Interview Supplementary Modules
• ICD-10-CM Z65.8 (Unbound Medicine): Z65.8 "Other specified problems related to psychosocial circumstances" (includes: religious or spiritual problem)

Other works cited: G. Nicholson, Dictionary of Correspondences (named by the Swedenborg Foundation) [uncertain: edition not verified]; Vieten et al. 2013, spiritual and religious competencies [uncertain: not verified]; Lindahl et al. 2017, PLOS ONE; Farias et al. 2020, Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica [uncertain: not verified].