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Frequently Asked Questions

The Emmaus Center is an organization dedicated to forming individuals to a life of service. Its mission is to provide guidance, support, and resources to those who are unafraid to embrace the complexities of the world and who are ready to serve others. The organization seeks to create a community of individuals who are committed to social justice, compassion, and service.
Formation is not just education, instruction, or training. It is about the process of developing particular dispositions. It goes beyond mere exposure to values and ideals. It refers to the transformation of persons, that they may embody and live out desired virtues and values. It is the process of initiating a person into a path of conversion. While the term formation is more frequently used in religious and seminary contexts, it also applies to lay people who may be doing formation work and undergoing the process themselves.
Psycho-spiritual formation is a perspective and a way of doing formation in which human nature and psychological factors are acknowledged, appreciated, and recognized as a place where the Holy can also be experienced. Human nature is seen as sacred space. The spirituality that develops through this integrated approach is grounded on one’s personal realities. Grace is experienced abundantly, amid one’s limitations and limitedness.
Emmaus Center has various services that aim to promote the integral psycho-spiritual formation of individuals and groups engaged in work for the Church and God’s people, not just for clergy. Thus, Emmaus Center caters to people from different contexts.
Emmaus Center sees this psycho-spiritual approach to formation to be its main contribution as it continues to participate in the mission of forming priests, religious men and women, and lay persons in the Church. This is carried out by providing programs and services primarily for formators of seminaries, religious congregations, and lay organizations consisting of any of the following:
Individual Accompaniment
  • Psychotherapy and Counseling
  • Spiritual Direction
  • Assessment
  • Consultation and Supervision
Human and Spiritual Formation
  • Formation Courses for Formators
  • Psycho-Spiritual Integration Workshops
  • Psycho-spiritual Retreats
  • Modules and Lectures on Formation, Well-being, etc
Skills Training and Enhancement
  • Processing Skills
  • Spiritual Direction Training
  • Lectures/Workshops on Psychological and Spiritual Issues
Emmaus Center’s services is open to individuals and groups from various religious and social contexts, not just Catholicism.

Psychotherapy can be a helpful intervention when you are experiencing difficulties in life, struggling with mental health, or if you are simply looking to increase your personal awareness about your thoughts, feelings, and situations. The professionally-trained therapist strives to create a listening and safe space for you to examine yourself and/or your concerns and to assist you as you navigate your inner life.

We at Emmaus recognize the courage it takes to seek help from mental health professionals. It is our hope to accompany and journey with you as you seek greater psychological freedom.

Therapy can facilitate a higher level of functional coping, new insights into oneself (psychological, emotional, spiritual, and physical functioning), more effective means of communication in one’s relationships, and more clarity with regard to one’s future directions.
The terms psychotherapy and counseling are often used interchangeably. Both psychotherapy and counseling involve talking to a mental health professional and dealing with mental health concerns. However, counseling tends to address more specific emotional and psychological concerns and is usually more short-term treatments. It is more focused on finding possible solutions to issues you may be currently experiencing. Psychotherapy tends to tackle broader and more chronic challenges, examining how certain enduring patterns of thinking, feeling, behaving have shaped and influenced your decisions, relationships, and overall quality of life. Psychotherapists are also trained to assess and treat more serious mental health issues.

Anyone can get psychotherapy, but not everyone benefits from it. You do not have to have mental health concerns to avail of therapy services. Some individuals go through therapy in order to increase their self-awareness which improves their sense of self and consequently, how they choose to navigate their circumstances.

Therapy takes courage. As such, you will benefit most when there is greater openness to examining yourself, your ways of thinking, behaving, and feeling and when there is motivation enough to potentially explore new ways of responding.

Psychotherapy does not claim to solve problems, especially problems that are not within your control such as death and sickness, unemployment, disaster, etc. Rather, it provides you with psycho-emotional support in your experience of pain, loss, and grief.

Therapy helps you develop adaptive and compassionate ways of relating with your own thoughts and feelings so that you can approach and deal with your challenges with a greater sense of clarity, freedom, direction, and agency.

Come and be transformed on the Emmaus journey!

Are you searching for greater freedom, integration, and meaning? Do you sense a deep desire to serve others and spread hope?

Then come and embark on your own Emmaus journey. Be part of a community of individuals and groups who have experienced the grace of Emmaus.

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